
U ' It' f ' 



THE TRIP 



STEAMER OCEAiNUS 



•ii 
^ 



•-^ijMJi 



J (5ir ♦ ^^y » 



Comprising the Incidents of the Excursion, the Appearance, at that time, of the 

City, and the entire Programme of Exercises at the Re-raising 

of the Flag over the Ruins of 



FORT SUMTER, 



A.PRIL 14th, 1865. 




BY A COMMITTEE APPOINTED BY THE PASSENGERS OK THE OCEAN US. 



BY A COMMITTEE APPOINTED BY THE PASSENUEKS Ut THt OCEAN Ua 



BKOOKLYN ; 

■THE UNION" STEAM PRINTING HOUSE, 10 FRONT STREET. 

1865. 






Entered, according to Act ot Conjjress, in tlie year l^tio. 

By J. CLEMENT FRENCH and EDWARD OAKY. 
In the Clerk's Office nf the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District ol New Vork. 



INTRODUCTORY :^OTE. 



The preparation of this book, wliatever may be its reception 
by those to wh(Mii it is dedicated, lias been a labor of k>ve. 
Uiisouoht, and ahnost nnder jirotest, the work was under- 
taken, at the unanimous request of the passengers of the 
" Oceanus." It was an addition to stated professional duties, 
which the committee appointed were exceedingly reluctant to 
accept. But, once begun, it brought its reward continually, 
in the joy of living over again minutely, every scene which 
made the excursion to Charleston the most memorable as to 
object, enjoyment and inspiration, which our national history 
has ever made possible. 

The work effects no fiultlessness. In the brief space during 
which it was composed, there was little opportu)iity for elabo- 
ration, ft professes to be, not a treatise upon national affairs, 
nor yet a discussion of princi|»les. but a current, unimagina- 
tive, and therefori' we trust, a perfectly truthful narration of 
scenes and incidents, from the hour the "Oceanus" left the 
wharf, until she brought us there again. The writers describe 
not oidy what was seen and enjoyed by themselves, but by 
hundreds of <tthers, who are asked to bear witness to the 
faithfulness of these records. 



IV INTRODDOTOKV. 

"riio dcluy ill issiiiiiij the incinorial, has arisen tVoiii tlic 
iK-ocssary oeeiipatioii of time in llic moehanical oxcciition. But 
if any have indulged impaticneo, wo confidcntlv believe that 
they will 1)(> amply repaid hy the style of typosrraphy, illns- 
ti'.-ilioii and general finish, in which the wivk is |)reseiited. 

'I'he eoniniittee, to whom the |)i-eparation of the volume 
was entrnsted, would gratefully acknowledge the kindly as- 
sistance, through eominunieated incidents, gleanings from the 
press, notices of relics, and manifestations of deep interest in 
the woi-k, rendei'ed hy many of their fellow- voyagers. 

To Mr. E. Anthony, of the firm " E. .V' IT. T. Anthony," 
No. r>01 r^roadway, New York, who had an artist in the lield, 
and who kindly permitted his copy-riglited views to he used 
for illustration, the committee of publication would tender their 
hearty thanks, in the name of the " Sumter Cliii).'" 

In conclusion, they woidd state that this hook is not an 
avaiit-(^onrier. Authorshi|) was as far from their intention as 
desire. An edition, covering l)ut few more copies than those 
actually subscribed fu' by the ])assengers of the "' ( )ceainis," 
is all that will be issued. The puldic may therefore rest 
assured, that it will then be out of |)rint, an<l in this case, the 
Scriptni'al nssertion, " of making vkdui books there is no end,'" 
will have a ])Ositive exception. 

If, ill the ]ieriisal of these pages, those who visited the ruined 
city and the storied Fort, shall experience any satisfictioii : if 
in coming years, it shall delight any one to reniemlKM' the 
historic excursion, the b«>tter by these simple records; if any 
im|)ulse shall be given to the sacred cause of loyaltv to our 
common country, the whole desire of those who now commit 
them to the public view, will be al)undantly answered. 



Ha tlje Sumter Club, 



Extemporized in origin : unexampled in occasion : abounding with the representatives 

of pulpit, pres;;, forum, and counting-room : graced with feminine 

beauty and culture: a synonym for patriotic 

devotion to 

the anniversary of whose resurrection in Charleston Harbor it is henceforth to 

celebrate with 
"FEAST OF REASON, AND FLOW OF LOYAL SOUL, 

this volume is primarily and cordially 

Dedicated. 



THE TRIP OF THE OCEANIIS 






CHAPTEK I. 

When the welcome intelligence reached the North 
that Charleston was occupied by the victorious legions 
of Gen. Sherman, the expectation was universal tliat a 
day would l)e appointed for the formal raising of the 
United States ilag over the ruins of Fort Sumter. 

Tliat expectation, our President did not disappoint. 
W^ith that unerring discernment of appropriate times 
and seasons, for which he was ever I'emarkable, he 
named the fourteenth of April, the fourth anniversary 
of the surrender, and the lowering of the banner for a 
four years' banishment. From the iirst appearance of 
this proclamation, it was felt that the occasion would 



6 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

1)0 one aroiiTul wliicli national and historic, interest would 
gather. V]h>u that day, every lojal son of the United 
States wonld exnlt, and give praise to God ; every trai- 
tor or sympathizer with treason, if not too hardened, 
wonld blush for the temerity and wickedness which at- 
tempted dishuno)' to the nation's standard ; every well- 
wisher to the American Re])ublic, in foreign lands, 
wonld sing in his lieart a glad " Te Demnr 

It was known that a steamer, officially commissioned, 
wonld convey to the Fort all those who were to take 
active part in the exercises, together with a few more 
favored individuals ; but what should they do, who 
were not within that charmed circle, the ^^ i<jnobile vul- 
(/((s,''' who were not so happy as Government patronage, 
just at this time, would have made them? Fortnnateh', 
a few gentlemen, to whom all the passengers of the 
Oceanus, upon that ever-memorable excursion, will always 
be grateful, conceived and executed a plan to afford 
this pleasure to a goodly number of their fellow-citizens. 

These gentlemen were Messrs. Ste})hen M, Griswold 
and Edwin A. Studwell, of Brooklyn, who sul)se>piently 
associated with themselves Mr. Edward Gary, Editor of 
T/ie Union, whose services were (;ontined, however, to 
issuing the tickets and receiving the money at the office 
of that paper. In pursuance of a plan arranged l)y these 
gentlemen, the steamer " Oceanus'' was chartered of the 
Ne])tnne Steamship Company, G. S. Howlaiid, President, 
for nine days, for which tinu^ she was turned over to 
the (Committee ibr ii trip to Ghai-leston, and such other 



TRIP OF THE OCKANUS. 



points as the passengers should decide to visit. Origi- 
nally, the plan of the trip end3raced not oidy Charleston 
Harbor and Fort Sumter, but Hilton Head, Fort Fisher, 
Fortress Monroe, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and possibly City 
Point, to whicli — when we heard of the fall of the Pebel 
capital — Richmond, also, was conditionally added. The 
expenses of the trip were divided among the passengers 
equally, so that $100 |)aid for berth and meals for the 
round trip. 

The iirst announcement of the proposed excursion was 
made in The Union of March 30th, in a very modest 
and succinct manner; the statement was repeated on the 
following day, and also made from Mr. Beecher's pulpit 
on Sunday. The result was a rush for tickets, beginning 
on the 31st, and increasing to such an extent that on 
Monday, the 3d of April, the Committee enlarged the 
number of passengers from one hundred and fifty, as 
originally determined, to one hundred and eighty. The 
scenes in the office of The Union were extremely 
annising, resulting from the earnestness of the applicants, 
their nervous anxiety each to secure the best accommo- 
dations possible, and from tlie hearty good humor with 
which all treated each other. The increase in the num- 
ber of passengers wholly failed to satisfy the demand ; 
twice as many would have eagerly taken the opportunity 
to go, if possible, and another party was projected, which 
was abandoned only because no other suitable steamer 
could be obtained. 

Finally, on the eighth of April, it was duly announced 



8 TKIP OF THE OCEANDS. 

that all the preparations were completed. The contract* 
for the boat had been duly signed, the tickets disposed 
of, passes obtained for the passengers individually, and 
a very liberal general permit, direct from the War De- 
partment, for the vessel — the latter largely through the 
kind othces of Mr. H. C. Bowen, of the Independent ; 
tlie provender had been stored, the vessel put in sea- 
going order, and Hon, Cyrus P, Smith, President of the 
Union Ferry Company, had kindly proffered the use of 
one of the largest of the East River ferry-boats to trans- 
fer the passengers from the foot of Montague Street to 
the dock of the Oceanus, at the foot of Robinson Street, 
on the North River, Avhence the excursionists were to 
start at noon, precisely, of the loth. 

On the morning of the lOth, at half-past ten, the 
Fulton Ferry boat Peconic started with her joyous com- 
pany, which was duly transferred to the Oceanus. The 
scenes at the wharf of the steamer were characteristic: 
the passengers coming on board in good time and cheer- 
ily, while many were still awaiting a possible vacancy. 
Tlie only addition to the company was Col. Howard, of 
the 128th Colored Regiment, who M'as eager to reach 
his connuand at Charleston, having just come from 
Sherman's triuniphant army at Savannah, where he had 
been attached to the staff of his bnjther. Gen. Howard. 
The time for departure having come, the crowd upon 
the wharf gathered to bid us God-speed. 

And a God-speed we had — possibly barring the s])eed — 

* See Ainieiulix. 



TRIP OK THK OCEANUS. 9 

but with good cheer, good nature, faithful seas, grand 
music, glowing patriotism, congenial company, hearts over- 
brimming with joy — save the last Dark Day — and pre- 
eminent Divine favor, from the hour that we waved our 
adieus, till again we touched the wharf at the foot of 
Robinson Street — all of which we will proceed to nar- 
rate with as much faithfulness as possil)le in the next 
and succeeding chapters. 



CHAPTER II. 

At 10 minutes past 12 o'clock M., April lUtli, the 
screw of the good steamer Oceanus began its recalcitra- 
tion, slowly pnsliing its precious and liappj freight out 
upon the bosom of the river. Cheer upon cheer broke 
forth from the ci'owd gathered upon the wharf, re- 
sponded to by the passengers tilling every available 
standing place upon the vessel's landward side ; hats 
and handkerchiefs were waved in the air, and parting 
messages exchanged, until the shouting and signals be- 
came futile by the increasing distance. It was evident 
that we had left hundreds of envious and yet congratu- 
latory liearts behind. We bore our enjoyment and 
honors meekly. 

The day was in uidiappy mood. All the morning 
the skies had lowered. A line, liltering mist had only 
slightly dampened our ardor. Now the rain increased, 
and a tenuous fog thickened gradually over the surface 
of the bay. It was not an auspicious inauguration of 
our voyage, but the doubting were assured by the hope- 
ful, who quoted the venerable and philosophic maxim 
•' A l)ad beginning makes a good ending." 

In the smooth waters of the harbor, we were pluming 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 11 

ourselves upon the delightful steadiness of the steamer. 
The inexjierienced were sure that the discomforts of a 
sea vo^yage, must have been greatl)' overstated. Now 
we pass Governor's Island, and the familiar lanthnarks 
in our own enterprising City ; we leave upon our left. 
Fort Lafayette, that boarding place of sundry treason- 
enacting individuals, and upon our right, the fortifica- 
tions and heights of Stateu Island ; now w^e point out 
the low sandy waste of Coney Island, and descry in 
the misty distance the light-house of Sandy Hook. It 
is the opinion of the writer that somewhere near this 
locality the hitherto staid steamer began to lose its re- 
putation for steadiness, and certain passengers, whose 
temperance and sobriety is proverbial, to exhibit strange 
symptoms of inebriety. Upon this point, however, owing 
to temporary aberration of his own intellect, he would 
prefer not to be considered authority. Yet he has suf- 
ticient distinctness of memory to recall a peculiarly 
gyratory motion among the passengers, as they attempted 
to navigate the cabin, the clutching here and there of 
ail outsider at the gunwale, and occasional visages of 
more than ordinary pallor. He remembers one gentle- 
man of portly carriage and still happy face, standing- 
near the cabin entrance with his friends, M'ho, n])on a 
sudden roll of the vessel, was caught just behind the 
knees by an opportune chair, and, as he was tilted over 
backward into its cushioned receptacle, remarked some- 
wliat drily, " I believe I'll sit down." The situation, 
which had been in a good degree comical, was now be- 



12 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

coming more serious, wlien sucldenW — ri(h — thump — stop — 
and we were ao-round. AVe had struck the sand-spit, 
and all the tem])est of the screw only sufficed to beat 
the shallow waters into unavailing!; foam at the stern. 
We hailed our supposed deliverer in a })uffing, spitting 
steam-tug, just in the offing, l)ut which, upon being 
lashed to the great hulk of the Oceanus, appeared like 
an ant tugging at a kernel of corn, and was about as 
efficient. Signal w^as given for a pilot-boat, which soon 
came bearing down before the l)reeze, and when within 
iiftj yards, dropped a row-boat astern, containing a pilot, 
and two oarsmen. Soon an order comes for the gen- 
tlemen to go forward, as the vessel is aground aft. We 
all go out u])on the forward deck, and stand with com- 
mendable patience in the sifting rain. The effect be- 
comes speedily apparent, for, depressed at the bow by 
such a weight of corporeal and mental ballast, the ship 
swings clear of the sand, and we discover by the buoys 
that we are drifting free. A few cpierulous individuals 
undertake to chaffer with the old salt, who stands with 
arms akimbo upon the window casement of the pilot- 
house. They soon learn that the experience of twenty 
years at sea not only perfects the nautical science, but 
shar])ens the wits of a New York Harbor pilot. 

"Can't you take us out this afternoon T' asks an im- 
patient passenger. 

"" I reckon I can, if you say so," responds the son of 
Neptune ; " but you'd better lay here to-night.'' 

" Why so ?" 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 13 

" Yon gentlemen want to go to Charleston, don't yon ?" 

"Of conrse" — from a dozen voices. 

" Wall, yon'd better lay here then to-night, for it's 
goin' to be a werrj dirty, nasty night outside/' 

Meanwhile, the (^oniniittee are holding a conference 
with the captain, and returning, submit the (juestion to 
tlie v'ote of the ])assengers, which, by a very large ma- 
jority, is decided in favor of remaining for clearer weatlier, 
until morning if necessary ; accordingly, while a few of 
the opposition are warndy debating the possibilities of 
danger and too long delay, lest we might miss the cele- 
bration of the coming Friday, with a rush and noise like 
small thunder down goes the anchor, and we lie as mo- 
tionless in the shallow waters at Sandy Hook as if 
moored at the wharf at the foot of Robinson St. The 
temporarily sea-sick reappear. The cabins are tilled with 
groups of ladies and gentlemen joyously discussing the 
morning news of the surrender of Lee, the prospects of 
the excursion, and the sensible conclusion to wait for 
brighter skies ; or, disposed in various attitudes, and with 
nondescript pens and pencils, and extemporized bits of 
letter paper, writing a few words to home friends, jocu- 
larly dating their missives, ''On Sandy Hook."" A well- 
known fellow-citizen of the happiest countenance acts as 
collecter of these epistles, and is the mail-carrier to the 
pilot. 

The Chairman of the Committee summons the passen- 
gers to the deck below, and explains to them the ar- 
rangements for the trip, the sea-worthiness of the vessel, 



14 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

the capacity and variety of the larder, and ansAvers the 
queries of the inquisitive witli satisfactory minuteness 
and good nature. 

Nothing was left us now but to kill time in the must 
entertaining and profitable manner })ossil)le ; and it was 
to the quick intelligence of a lady that we wei'e indebted 
for a patriotic meeting in the evening, which was the 
jubilant key-note for all its successors; a series of meet- 
ings, Avliose enjoyableness in all the elements of patriotic 
fervor and eloquence, pathos, breadth, Avit, and humor, 
is seldom equaled. 

The meeting of Monday evening was organized by 
the appointment of Hon. Cyrus P. Smith, President ; 
Hon. Edward A. Landjert, Joshua Leavitt, D. I)., Henry 
C. Bowen, Hon. A. M. Wood, and S. M. Griswold, Yice- 
Presidents, Plon. George Hall and Mr. E. A. Studwell, 
Secretaries. Mr. AVm. B. Bradbury kindly consented to 
act as Director-General of music, the piano being gener- 
ously furnished for tlie trip by Messrs. Sawyer & Thomp- 
son. 

The most humorous introduction was given to the 
exercises by the tacetious proposition to sing, in begin- 
ning, "We are out on the ocean sailing" — the most 
perfect burlesque upon our situation, fast at the end of 
an anchor chain, and as motionless as the hills of Xevi- 
sink. AVhen the ex})losiou of laughter which greeted 
this announcement had subsided, the familiar Sabbath- 
school glee was sung with a will. Peculiarly suggestive 
to many seemed the last three lines : 



TKIP OF THE OCEANUS. 15 

" When we all are safely landed 
Over on tliat golden shore, 
We icill walk ahoiit the city" etc., etc. 

Rev. Tlieo. L. Cuyler was called upon to state the 
object of the meeting. For half an hour he stated it 
with anecdote and illustration, reminiscence and ap])eal, 
in a strain of fervid, patriotic eloquence, and resumed 
his seat anndst a storm of applause. His speech was a 
iitting preparation for the soul-stirring song, "Rally 
round the Hag, boys!" which followed at his request. 
We may remark, in passing, that throughout the entire 
excursion, the unusual amount of excellent musical as 
well as speaking talent was brought into daily j-eqiiisition. 

The second s})eaker of the evening was Rev. O. B. 
Frothingham, wdiose well-considered, earnest, and timely 
address was listened to with very marked attention. 

Rev. H. M. Gallaher, of the Nassau Street Baptist 
Church, a stranger to many of the party at the outset, 
was next introduced, and for nearly an hour kept the 
conq^any in a tumult of laughter and applause by his 
side-splitting stories, his racy narrations, his broad come- 
dy, his glowing enlogies of his adopted country — he is 
an Irishman — and his brilliant climaxes. He was no 
longer a stranger to the passengers of the Oceanus. 

Mr. Bradbury's spirited national glee, " Yictory at 
last," which all the musical on board seemed to catch 
as by intuition, was then sung with a vociferous ellect, 
which might almost have been heard on shore. This 
song became one of the indispensable spiceries of every 



16 TRIP OF THE OCKANUS. 

occasion, and, by the kind })erniission of its author, is 
to be found, with the music, in the appendix. 

A brief address was made by Rev. J. Clement French, 
followed by Col. Howard, i)reviously mentioned. The 
Colonel's address was rej)lete with practical common 
sense, and witli frank and cordial acknowledgment of 
the services of the privates, such as might have been 
expected from a true soldier, whose best record is to be 
found in his deeds. 

After the grand old Doxology, " Praise God from 
whom all blessings tiow,'' the meeting adjourned, subject 
to the call t»f the President. 

And it was high time, for, during the speeches of 
the last two gentlemen, the sounds of hurrying feet 
upon the decks had been heard ; the welcome news had 
been whispered through the company that we were 
weighing anchor, and were al)out to proceed on our 
way ; the now familiar roll <jf tlie ship began again to 
be experienced ; the speakers were steadying themselves 
against the table and iron braces of the cabin, and a 
very few of the most sensitive had (piietly withdrawn 
to their state-rooms. Going forth to the bow, we found 
that the steamer had already left the lights of Sandy 
Hook far in the distance, the dull clouds were opening 
in rifts, through which the friendly moon smiled promi- 
ses of a fairer sky ; the pilot was gone, and we were 
fairly at sea. 

Despite the inspiriting effects of these pleasant omens, 
the duty of an honest historian compels us to state that 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 17 

certain stalwart gentlemen, with an excess of self-denial, 
gave whatsoever they had laid by at the supper-table to 
the iishes of the sea. The general impression seemed 
to prevail that it was high time for all honest and pa- 
triotic individuals to be in their Ijerths. Further than 
this, concerning Monday night, your deponent saith not. 
To attempt a description of the scenes on l)oard our 
vessel throughout Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday 
morning for you indeed, might be amusing, but for us, 
"it is not convenient.'" A strange oblivion concerning 
those hours settles upon our memory. We remember 
hearina: the strains of Helmsmuller's Band contending 
with the creaking of the rolling ship, and the dashing 
of the waves; an occasional flourish by some fair hand 
upon the piano, supplemented by a distressed sound in 
the after cabin ; the voice of Helon Johnson, the colored 
waiter, singing in the adjoining state-room the tantaliz- 
ing ditty, 

" Rocked in the cradle of the deep, 
I lay me down in peace to sleep," 

— the rich sweetness of whose tones only enhanced the 
impertinent mockery ; the unsteady tread of the ex- 
empt, as they shambled past our door; the untouched 
bowls of soup ; the prescriptions without number of sea- 
water, brandy, mustard, lemon-juice, ice-cream, salt pork, 
et id omne genus ; the glimpses we caught through the 
crack of the door of serried rows of mattresses in the 
cabins, each bearing a pale-faced, despairing female, 
whose head was in painful proximity to a little green. 



18 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

semi-lunar hasiu of tin, with clianiherniaids huri'viiin- to 
and tVo, themselves worn down hy constant service; the 
bra\'e resistance to sea-sickness by our room-mate, who 
had weathered the storms of Lake Erie and Michigan, 
until the heavy sea of Thursd.iy morning obliged him 
to succund); how he rushed into the state-room where 
we were writhing in su])erlative wretchedness, divested 
himself, in a twinkling, of his outer and nether integu- 
ments, plunged into his berth with the expressive de- 
claration, "Whew ! I'm as dizzy as a bat," until we of 
the lower berth writhed again with irrepressible laugh- 
ter — these few distinct recollections come floating through 
the vagueness Avliich gathers over those darksome days, 
and may serve as liints for those who desire to treasure 
uj) tlie more ludicrous incidents of the voyage. 

]>ut the meetings went on, with dinnnished numbers, 
it is true, but with no abatement of interest. On Tues- 
day evening, Edward A. Lambert, Esq., presided. We 
were told that the Rev. A. P. Putnam made tlie open- 
ing address, fully equaling the occasion in impressiveness 
and powei'; that the Rev. J. L. Corning spoke pointedly 
and pleasantly ; that Charlton T. Lewis, Es(]., of New 
York, delighted the audience with the clearness and 
force of his thought, and the graceful finish of his rlieto- 
ric ; that Rev. II. M. Gallaher again scintillated with 
increasing popularity; and Rev. Dr. Leavitt gave weight 
and dignity to the occasion by his narrations of personal 
experience, and forceful utterances of practical truth, while 
music and applause and laughter filled up all the inter- 
stices of the hastily-fleeting hours. 



TRIP OF THE OOEANUS. - 19 

We were indebted, on each of tliese occasions, to Miss 
Plitebe B. Merritt and Miss Mary Bowen for some ex- 
cellent piano solos. 

Wednesday passed with little of special interest. The 
sea was calmer. Cape Ilatteras had been cleared with- 
out inconvenience additional. We were experiencing a 
marked modification of temperature. State-rooms became 
uncomfortably close. It was said that tlie sea outrivaled 
the sky in the de})th and infinity of blue ; that a school 
of porpoises rolled their black backs above the waves in 
merry gambols around the steamer, and that those who 
had " oil on the brain" looked with stoical indifference 
upon a whale. It was also averred that the culinary 
and dietetic arrangements were becoming more and more 
satisfactory, and that the number gathered al)out the 
board was upon the increase. 

A third meeting was held in the evening, presided 
over by Hon. A. M. Wood, of Brooklyn. 

The first speaker upon this occasion was Mr. A. M. 
Powell, a correspondent of the Tribune. His address 
was thoughtful, earnest, radical, and convincing. 

Col. Howard, Hon. Edgar Ketchum, Dr. J. Allen, 
Revs. T. L. Cuyler and H. M. Gallaher, with others, 
continued the interest of our former gatherings. At the 
close, several of the colored waiters, whose choi'uses 
upon the lower decks had attracted much attention, 
were invited to sing for our company. Coming modest- 
ly into so august a presence, they rendered the "John 
Brown''' song with peculiarly fine effect. 



20 TRIP OF THE (KJEANUS. 

Throughout the afternoon of Wednesda}^ and part of 
the nig'ht, we were enveloped in an impenetrable fog. 
I>ut tlie morning of Thursday was clear and beautiful, 
with no other motion for our vessel than that imparted 
by the long roll of the sea. But this was now excessive. 
The steamer, Ijeing a propellor, liad nothing with whicli 
to overcome the trough of the sea, in which we were 
fearfully rocking. She would make from four to six 
heavy lurches, then, for a few seconds, all would be 
comparatively quiet ; then as many more rolls, and all 
things not lashed down, including men and women, 
pitch across the cabin. Some of the stoutest and bravest 
liad to show the white feather this morning. The rear 
cabin again became a hospital. It was thought that we 
must be very near Charleston. We were promised the 
sight of its spires by eight o'cdock A. M., ])ut we did 
not see them. All day long, until tliree o'clock, the 
steamer's course was laid nearly due west. How could 
it be that we were so far from land ? At last it was 
ascertained tliat during the night we had been borne 
to the eastward by the (lulf stream, and tliis distance 
was now l)eing recovered. 

At length, n(jt far from three o'clock, the joyful sliout, 
'' Land ho I " ({uickened the languid pulses, dissipated 
the ennuis calle(l out of their sechision the pallid and 
bilious-tinted, and crowded the deck with eager-eyed 
searchers, through opera-glasses, for the coveted terra- 
firma. The light-ship was plainly visible, upon whose 
side, the most clear-sighted could read the suggestive 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 21 

name, "Rattlesnake Slioals." "Beyond could be descried 
the low reach of land : a dim pile, which we were as- 
sured was Fort Sumter, and still further, the spires of 
the once proud, l)ut now humbled, Charleston. The 
arrival ou board of the pilot completed our satisfaction, 
and the welcome he received was unfeigned. 

Pie was a short, stout man, dressed in army blue, with 
which the color of his large, flat eye precisely corres- 
ponded. His face was nut-brown, from the tinting ot 
Southern breezes. He was born and brought uj) in 
Charleston. He at once informed the captain that the 
bar coidd not be passed until high-tide, at six o'clock. 
Accordingly, the anchor was dropped, and we gently 
rocked for two hours "in the cradle of the deep." This 
pilot is now in Government employ. When asked if 
all the people of Charleston were loyal, lie shrugged his 
shoulders, and made no reply. 

One said : " We are going down to make you loyal." 

" You won't make me loyal," said the old tar, " for 
I always have been." 

We afterwards learned that his testimony concerning 
himself was true. 



CHAPTER III. 

The scenes which gi-eeted tlie passengers of the Ocean us, 
as we slowly steamed toward and through the harbor of 
Charleston, not even the most stolid and impassable will 
ever forget. 

At precisely six o'clock, anchor \vas weighed. The 
entire company was npon the decks, with glasses ready 
for observation. The band took its position np(jn the 
very bow. Previous to starting from tlie anchorage, there 
had been a brief shower, gi'^'ing a delicious freslmess to 
the air, and leaving the western heavens overspread 
with heavy, breaking clouds of gray. Suddenly a sign 
appeared before us, of singular and portentous interest. 
The rays of the sun smote a circular opening in tiie 
murky clouds, hemming their edges with a band of light, 
and, just for a moment, poured down a flood of glory 
upon the jagged walls of Fort Sumter, and the waters 
of tlie harbor. 

The pilot stood at the window, from which, besides 
giving his directions to the helmsman, he announced the 
various points of interest, as we approached and passed 
them. 

The flrst object of note was a line of low earthworks 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 23 

upon the left sliore, upon tlie top of wliicli were several 
soldiers, whose muskets glistened in the light. They 
were watching the approach of oui" vessel, and as we 
moved along, ran wildly down to the sandy beach, 
waving their handkerchiefs in joyous welcome. Just 
beyond, were two buoys, marking the spots where the 
Keokuk and Weehawken were sunk, the staff upon the 
bow of the latter being visible, to which the hand 
of some eager patriot had lashed a small American flag. 

We would not fail to record another display in the 
sky, which just at this point arrested every gaze, and 
called forth from the entranced observers, at length, a 
burst of the wildest enthusiasm. It was no mere fig- 
ment of the imagination, but a vision to the reality 
and beauty of which every passenger on the Oceanus 
was a delighted witness. 

All at once arose a cry of admiration, as a hun- 
dred hands pointed to the spectacle. " See ! the red, 
white, and blue! tlie red, white, and blue!" — for there, 
right before us in the western heavens, the scarlet streak- 
ings of the sunlight lay in parallel bars of amazing equi- 
distance upon the grayish blue background of mist, in- 
termingled here and there with white bands of the nearer 
clouds, the whole forming a singularly perfect picture of 
our beloved flag, hung out, as it seemed, by tlie hand 
of God, over the recovered city, and greeting with its 
celestial benison the sons and daughters of the North 
who were bringing the tidings of Lee's surrender, and 
the death of the Rebellion. 



24 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

As the thcmglit, in all its signiiicanee, suft'used our 
souls, many an eye was inoist, and hands were clasped, 
in the devoutness of joy. 

Now, we are passing a long and low tongue of land, 
beyond which the bay returns backward. Upon this 
stands Fort Wagner, of the deepest historic interest. 
Here, for the first time, it was demonstrated that negroes 
could and would fight terribly, desperately, even to de- 
cimation. Along that narrow causeway, exposed to the 
murderous direct fire from the Fort, the dauntless 
regiment charged with the impetuosity of a tempest, to 
be rolled back by the torrent of shot and shell; again 
and again rallied and charged against fearful odds, until 
their Colonel, the noble and lamented Shaw, fell in his 
blood, the idol of his men, ai^l the admired of all the 
1)rave. 

It is not certainly known where his body sleeps. 
There were some of Carolinian blood, whose a|)precia- 
tion of heroism rose no higher than the plantation edict : 
"Bury him with his niggers!" Some say that his re- 
mains were scattered by the Rebels to the four winds 
of heaven. Others affirm that they were buried obscurely 
near the spot on wliich he fell. It is reported, also, 
that when it was proposed to his father to remove the 
dust of the heroic soldier to some other luirial-place, he 
replied that '* he wanted no better or nobler grave for 
his son than the very soil u])on wliich he ])oured out 
his blood.'' 

Next, we pass Sullivan's Island, u]^on the angle of 



f 




TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 25 

vv'liicli was the tanious Cuniiniii^-s'' Point Battery, built 
of railroad iron, and wliicli rolled tlie cannoii-sliot of 
Sumter from its sides as tliouijjli they had been peas. 

Now we are approaching Foi't Sumter itself, the cen- 
tre of all present observation and interest. There it lies, 
like a vast disabled monster, crouching in sullen and con- 
scious imbecility, in the centre of the hai'bor. Its para- 
pets, once so lovely, are battered into jagged shapeless- 
ness. Its sides are deeply pock-marked and indented. 
Heaps of rubbish and dehrw around its base disclose the 
terriiic ordeal through which it has passed since April, 
1861. From the new tiag-staff in its centre waves the 
Banner of the Republic, never again to be displaced by 
the hand of the traitor. Its port-holes are mostly closed. 
Rows of wicker baskets can be descried, filling up the 
ghastly chasms. Here and tliere upon the walls, a sen- 
tinel paces to and fro. Involuntarily our heads are all 
uncovered. A solemn silence pervades the throng, as 
for a moment the thought of the past four years, with 
their changes, passions, carnage, suffering, defeats de- 
pression, and final triumph flashes through every mind. 
There is but one language which can express the emo- 
tions of that moment. It is the language of thaidcful 
song. And, as by a conunon inspiration, our voices 
1)reak forth in one grand, surging, heaven-echoed chorus : 

'■ Praise God, from whom all blessings flow I 
Praise Him, all creatures here below ! 
Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Host ! 
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!" 

That allelulia is heard by the guardians of the old 



2(i TKIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

ruin. Ill (juick response, the f1ai>- is dipped, the walls 
bristle with armed men waving their salute ; the band 
peals forth the " Star Spangled Banner" — litting har- 
mony to be rolled back n])on the recreant sons of the 
South Carolinian who penned its measures — and we move 
on to other scenes. P^ort Sumter! au revoir! 

Just beyond the ruin, at the left, lies the wreck ot 
the famous old tioating-l)attery, built by I'eauregard, with 
which to take the tort. A portion of one of its sides, 
with four port-holes visible, still remains above the wa- 
ter. Near bv, are the wrecks of two Eno'lisli blockade- 
runners, the smoke-stacks and bowsprit only l)eiiig in 
sight. To the right is Fort Moultrie, — abandoned by 
Major Anderson and his brave followers in 1861, for the 
stronger defense of Fort Sumter, now in good condition, 
though never a fortitication of superior strength. Bat- 
ter.y Bee extends its low earth-mounds, now green with 
luxuriant grass, for a long distance towards the city. 
Fort Ripley appears in the midst of the water, a small 
and insignificant redoubt, built by the Bebels, with the 
stones taken from the streets of Charleston. 

Beyond, and of more importance, rises Castle Pinckney, 
surrounded by a high light-house. 

On either side of the harbor, the shores are crowned 
with groves of the pines peculiar to this country, their 
tops branching and interwoven, and presenting to the 
inexperienced, the appearance of the palmetto. This 
latter tree shows itself but sparsely here. We saw but 
one or two specimens, and these were as crooked and 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 27 

uninteresting as the nativ^es whose cross-grained State 
they symbolize. 

All these places of martial reputation were greeted as 
we passed, with cheers, the band meanwhile playing 
patriotic airs, for we saw waving above them all, the 
Banner of the Free. 

We were now abreast of the United States vessels-of- 
war at anchor, the blockading vessels released from 
service, the captured blockade runners, the (Tovernment 
transports, and two monitors scarcely clearing the water's 
edge. To each of these we shouted the news, which was 
received with wild hurrahs, and the rapid dip])ing of the 
colors. A unique and beautiful sight presented itself 
through the thickly gathering twilight, as we steamed 
past the men-of-war. At a given signal, the boys in 
blue sprang to the shrouds, ran up like so many 
squirrels, walked out upon the yard-arms, tilled all the 
rigging, and aspired even to the top-masts ; then turn- 
ing about, they waved their hats in exultation, and sent 
their ringing cheers across the water. 

The monitors lie nearest the city. It is easy to under- 
stand the contempt which the Rebels felt for the first 
craft of this description, as commanded by the gallant 
Worden, it bore down upon their vast lumbering monster, 
the Merrimac, in the waters of Hampton Roads. Their 
title, bestowed at that time, was certainly graphic, " A 
Yankee cheese-box afloat." And yet the " cheese-box" 
has poured contempt upon the '' wooden walls" of En- 
gland, and revolutionized the naval warfare of the world. 



28 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

Darkness was now settling; lieavily n])()n us. We 
could (Hinly discern the Battery, with its row of once 
niagniticent mansions, with the marks of shells upon 
them. Before us lay the City, dead to all ap})earances. 
Half a dozen lights gleamed along the wharves, hut 
these were n])on our own vessels. Not the dickering of 
a taper was to be seen in any other part of the City. 
It was the very darkness of desolation. We conld see 
the crowds gathering upon the wharves and vessels. 
As we drew nearer, a voice was heard faintly calling 
through the gloom. 

"What's the news^" 

One of our company, a man of stentorian lungs, juit- 
ting his hands to his mouth, roared forth, the thrilling 
intelligence. 

"Lee has surrendered, with his whole army!" Again, 
the voice from the shore, faintly. 

" Have we got Lee !" 

"Yes!'" thundered the spokesman, and then from the 
shore, uprose such a peal of huzzas, such a wild tumult 
of exultation as made the night vocal. The hand on 
board the Blackstone, which lay at the wharf, struck up 
the " Star Spangled Banner," to which our band res- 
ponded "My Country, 'tis of Thee," then again from the 
shore, the "Eed, White and Blue," and from the Oceanus, 
" Hail Colund>ia !" and enthusiasm indescribable reigned. 
As we came u}) to the anchorage near the wharf, we 
waited for a permit to enter the dock. Though Gen. Gil- 
more had not yet arrived from Hilton Head, an officer 



TKI]' OF THE OCEANUS. 29 

from one of the U. S. steamers from Suvaimali, haviiiii- 
a very creditable faith in our loyalty, boldly cut red 
tape, and authorized our ca})tain to swing up to the 
wharf. 

This done, a few eager uiemljers of the party were 
determined to go ashore. Much confusion ensued, but 
at length half a dozen succeeded in their purpose, and 
made their way to the Charleston Hotel, where they 
announced the news to Gen. Wilson, and others. The 
wharf was covered with a motley gang of native negroes, 
contrabands, poor whites and rough-looking fellows, whose 
appearance was anything but an invitation to familiari- 
ty. The remainder of the ]>arty retired to the supper 
table to satisfy an appetite whetted by long delay. 
After supper, a meeting was called in the Ladies' Cabin. 
Dr. Leavitt was appointed Chairman. He said that it 
would be regarded by all as eminently appropriate, after 
so nuxny and signal mercies, through which we had been 
safely brought to our destination, to recognize the good- 
ness of Almighty God. 

Rev. J. S. Corning was called upon to make a few 
remarks, befitting the occasion, at the conclusion of 
which Rev. J. Clement French was invited to oiler a 
])rayer of thanksgiving to God for his '' eminent mercy 
to ourselves since we left New York, and his great 
loving kindness to our beloved country." 

Pleasant speeches follow^ed. By 10 o'clock the party 
which had gone ashore, returned, bringing with them 
flowers which they had gathered from the gardens. 



30 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

Rev. Mr. Cuyler. holding up a bo(]uet of roses and 
mock oranges, made it the text for one of his most eftec- 
tive addresses, Capt. Hunt, of Brig.-Gen. Hatch's staff, 
brought us the sahitations of the officer commanding, 
and in his name tendered us the freedom of the city, 
witli promise of conveyance, and privilege of gathering 
all the flowers we might desire. Geu. Hartwell, and 
Major Nutt, of the 155th Colored Regt., who had just 
returned from a ten days raid into the interior of S. C. 
entertained us until midnight with accounts of their ad- 
ventures, and we reluctantly retired, that we might I)e 
refreshed for the visit to the city on the following 
mornins;. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The morning of the ever niemoral)le Friday. April 
14th, dawned at length. It is snrmised that more of 
the passengei's of the Ocean us witnessed its rising sun 
than are wont to behold that matin spec^taele. For, 
when the writer, in the pale grey twilight, lirst step])ed 
forth upon Southern soil, the wharf was alive with the 
members of our party, and numerous gentlemen were 
returning from moonlight strolls through the city, their 
hands and arms laden with Howers and sprays of ex- 
(piisite fragrance and verdure. A slight shower during 
the night had laid the dust and lent a delicious coolness 
to the air. 

Breakfast was ordered promptly at six o'clock. This 
preliminary business being disposed of, we were re- 
quested by our enterprising fellow-citizen, Mr. W. E. 
James, to bestow ourselves as eligibly as possible upon 
the decks of the steamer, to be instantaneously photo- 
graphed. Some of our first reflections in Charleston, 
were made at this moment. 

It had been announced that we should have until ten 
o'clock for rambling about the city, at which hour, pre- 
cisely, the transports would leave for Fort Sumter. The 



32 TRU' OF THE ockanus, 

majority of the company were now waiting tor the con- 
veyances so kindly promised l»y Ca]»t. JTunt, the evening 
previous. He had stated that the authorities had im- 
pressed all the carriages in the city for the conveuience 
of their Noi-thern friends. Ahout eight o'clock, an army 
amhulance, drawn by a s])an of sorry animals, ])y cour- 
tesy yclept horses, was discovered approaching upon the 
wharf. A passenger jocularly remarked, " Here couie 
the carriages !" whereupon a pleasant laugh went round. 
Soon a line of similar vehicles was drawni up alongside 
the Oceanus, flanked by sundry dilapidated carriages, 
carts, omnibusses, iisli-wagons or whatever goeth upon 
four wheels or two, and drawn by mules, jacks and 
donkeys, or whatsoever goeth up(,)n four legs or three. 
This was the livery of Charleston. And, surely enough, 
these were our carriages. With no little merriment 
these equipages were received, but the alacrity with 
which the ladies and gentlemen stowed themselves 
within them, showed conclusively how little they stood 
npon the ceremony or ""order of their going." 

Not from any contemj)t for these vehicles, but trom 
the conviction that sight-seeing could be better accom- 
plished in the primitive way of traveling, we set out 
on foot, accompanied by a few friends, and turned our 
footsteps into the avenue known as the Battery, when 
we iirst began to realize what war had done for the in- 
famous cit}' of Charleston. 

The Battery is a fine and straight [)romenade, about 
a quarter of a mile in length, built directly upon the 



TRIP OF THE OCEANFS. 33 

waters of tlie harbor. A wall of iiiasoiirv rises six or 
seven feet t(» the broad esplanade or pavement (jf stone, 
commanding a mag-nificeiit prospect of the Bay, and all 
the fortifications therein. The street is withont pave- 
ment, the stones having been nsed for fortifications. 
Upon the opposite side of the street, stand the once 
elegant mansions of the "aristocracy." This Battery, 
and these residences, fonr years ago were teeming \vith 
thonsands of snrging, frantic Charlestonians, as they wit- 
nessed the bondjardment of Fort Snmter. Every foot of 
space in the street and npon the })romenade, was oc- 
cnpied ; every window, doorway, balcony and housetop 
was crowded with Inizzaing Secessionists, men and 
women, glorying over the chivalry whicli pitted 10,000 
armed men, nnder cover of strong ramparts, against 
seventy heroes, true to their country's flag; shut up in 
the narrow enclosure of a Fort and cut oflf by the sea 
from all possibility of retreat. Every shot from the 
doomed Sumter and from the surrounding batteries, as 
it went screaming to its work of demolition, or fell hiss- 
ing into the sea, could be distinctly seen by the excited 
sj^ectators on land ; and as the fiery hail was poured 
without intermission for two days and a night, into that 
enclosure of about four acres, setting fire to the bar- 
racks and officer's quarters, and as the black smoke rose 
gloomily up to the heavens, or at night, was lit up by 
the flash of guns and the reflection of flrelight, it mnst 
have seemed to one, who could read Clod's providences 
in the light of a j>rescient faitli, as the pillar of tire 



34 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

and cloud which was destined to jjo l^etbre a race des- 
despised and enslaved, till it should lead them out into 
the promised land of liberty and peace. 

And throughout those two terrible days, as long as 
they could serve a gun, the faithful fellows under the 
command of the heroic Anderson, poured forth their 
defiant volleys, until reason and humanity (Combined to 
dictate a surrender. 

How changed now the scene 1 At the entrance of the 
Battery lies a rusty, dismounted gun upon the dehris 
of an old earthwork. The crowd has Hed — God only 
knows whither. Desolation and ruin sit monarchs of the 
phu;e. Here we began to see the etfect of Gen. Gil- 
more's shells, thrown from a distance of five and a 
quarter miles from the city. The splendid houses were 
all deserted, the glass in the windows broken, the walls 
dilapidated, the columns toppled over. Some had escaped 
with scarcely a scratch, while others were battered into 
shapeless ruin. Holes have been made entirely through 
.them, from two to six feet in diameter, roofs have been 
broken in, sleepers uptorn and scattered, arches demol- 
ished, mantels shattered, while fragments great and small, 
of every description strew the floors. These were tlie man- 
sions of tlie '"''AriMocraGi/y The style of architecture is 
somewhat peculiar. ( )f many of the edifices, the main l)ody 
is from three to four stories in height, with rooms very large 
and high. Upon one side, immense verandahs or piazzas 
with heavy columns— a verandah for each story — and all 
havino- treselated floors, must have formed the most 



TRIP OF THE OOEANUS. 35 

breezy, sightly and delightful resorts for the enervate 
occupants. In one of these houses, a flight of eighty 
marble steps conducts to the upper stories. All these 
residences are suri-ounded Ijy broad gardens, abounding 
yet with the most luxuriant growth of trees and shrubs — 
the orange, the mock orange, the magnolia, the lilac, 
the hawthorn, the jasmine, roses and vines of every 
variety. The gates were flung wide open by order of 
the military authorities, and we availed ourselves of the 
permission to pluck and carry away whatever floral 
trophies we desired. 

Many of these gardens give evidence yet of the great- 
est horticultural skill and taste, though at present, of 
course, sadly neglected. In some parts, the growth of 
vegetation, trees, shrubs, vines and rose bushes was so 
dense and tangled that we could not force our way 
through by the former paths. Here and there, romantic 
l)owers of box and luiwthorn appear. Some of the rose 
trees grow to an astonishing height, and fairlj' bend 
with their wealth of blossoms. One rises from eight to 
twelve feet from the ground, bearing a rose of delicate 
golden tint, and of size surpassing our largest cabliage 
roses. And as the magniflcent flowers, in their rank pro- 
fusion, touch each other, and seem to melt together all 
over the top of the tree, they fully justify the name by 
which they are called "the doth of (jold.'' It was not 
yet the season for the orange and magnolia, and though 
we missed their spicy fragrance, we were nearly com- 
pensated by the lush and glossy greenness of their 



36 TRIP OF THE OOEANUS. 

leaves. The blossoms of the mock orange were abun- 
dant. 

Here we were, in the full tlush of Summer, with the 
aiWuenee of foliage tmd Horal beauty all around us. We 
had come from the North, with only the tirst signs ot 
returning S})ring to be seen, in here and there a crocus 
and daffodil, the springing grass and the freshening 
green of willows in reflected heats, or along the water- 
courses. It was like magic. We were in another zone. 
The air was spiced with the aroma of flowers, and 
freighted with the melody of birds, all guiltless of seces- 
sion, and warbling out their welcome. 

But the owners of these estates — where are thev? 
Fled — and all the }>roud traits of their aristocracy and 
superiority hushed in the streets of the silent city. 
They are fugitives and vagabonds, wandering up and 
down the interior mountains and plantations of South 
Carolina, indulging still the dreamy delusion, that the 
day is just at hand when Lee will annihilate (irrant and 
Shei-man, and then the Confederacy shall speak from 
the throne and pulpit of Charleston, its dictum of sov- 
ereignty to the States and to the world. Such was the 
story we were told by those who remain. But was 
Charleston a unanimously disloyal city throughout the 
four years during which the huge Tlebellion was ram- 
])!int^ We may answer — with few exceptions — but these 
will be ever honored. Rev. A. P. Putnam, in his letter 
to the Independent^ says: 

"There is one name, at least, that Avill shine out 



TKIl' OF TirK (X^EANTIS. 0» 

Avitli g-lorioiis lustre in the liistorv of these dark years 
of (Charleston. Ft i-~ that of the immortal ' Pktigru.'' 
From the \ov\ tirst. and until he died, he denounced 
the rehellion aiul its authors in most unmeasured terms 
of severity. Puhlicly and in ju-ivate, lie exposed the sin 
of treason, and proclaimed his lovaltv to the Union and 
its flag. When asked one day by a stranger where was 
the Lunatic Asylum, he exchiiined, ' Every where in 
the city; the people are all madl' It was a marvel 
that he was not assassinated. It was doubtless, only his 
old age, his powerful family influence, and his wide 
connections, that saved him. Perhaps the people re- 
garded him as having fallen into his dotage, and were 
willing to tolerate (»ne who was such an extraordinary 
exce]»tion to the general rule. There were others, how- 
ever, in the doomed city, who were as loyal as lie, but 
they were not in a position to utter so freely their sen- 
timents. And of all the aflfecting incidents or stories 
connected with the war, I scarcely know of one more 
touching than that during the long a?id frightful reign 
of the rebellion in that birth-place of our national 
troubles, a small band of loyal men were Avont to meet 
occasionally in a secret upper chamber, where with 
closed doors they unfurled the flag of the Stars and 
Stripes, and in tears, drank to its perpetual success." 

The members of our com])any were everywhere seen 
emerging from these deserted houses and gardens, cross- 
ing and recrossing the streets, with boquets of fabulous 

dimeiisions in their hands, or chafl'ering with some little 
3 



38 'l'RTT» OF TIIK onKANU?;. 

negro girl foi- a tloM'er of extraordinarv beauty. l*ass- 
iiig oil, we eoiiie to t\\o Soutli IJattery, a imicli l)i'()a(ler 
and more beautiful ])roineiiade, and resenil)liug our city 
parks, witli trees of lusty growth, wide walks, and ])ai'- 
terres witli tlowers. At tbe angle, liigli mounds of 
eartli liad l)eeii thrown uj), serving the double ])urpose 
of storehouses and magazines, and earthworks for the 
mounting of lieavv guns. Trishmeu were engaged 
ill reniovinii' tlicm. ^Phe onl\' instaiKu^ of animositv 
taking ])ali)al)le form toAvards ;niy of the ])assengers of 
the Oceanus, occurred at this point. One gentleman, 
standing a few yanls from the spot, with his l)ack to 
the workmen, was struck on the leg l)y a stone, inten- 
tionally thrown ])y one of thes(^ ii"ishmen. 

I^ear this ]:)oint still remain a seven-hundred ]>ound 
Blakely gun. wliich the Rebels had loa(U'd to the muz- 
zle, and burst upon their evacuation of the city. The 
tinest residences face the South Battery also, retaining 
still manv evidences of tiieir original wealth and 
beauty. 

As we pass up Meeting and Jviiig Streets, which 
too;ether witli East l^av and Broad Streets, constitute 
the main business portion of the city, the traces of 
demolition become more numerous than upon the Bat- 
tery. (Trhastly holes appear in roofs and walls, iron 
doors and blinds are bent double, cornices are shivered, 
pavements are torn up and ploughed, making very pre- 
carious footing after nightfall. Fragments of hrick and 
stone lie scattered on everv hand. Occasionally, a face 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 39 

could be seen at the windows, glowering- sullenly at us 
as we passed, but no indignity was ottered, nor in any 
case threatened. Negroes of every shade thronged the 
streets; gray haired ''uncles" and turbaned "aunties," 
grinning and giggling children, and "picaninnies," all 
manifesting jo_y to see us, in their own peculiar methods, 
from the quick and not disgraceful curtsey, to the 
frantic throwing up of the arms, clap23ing of hands, and 
the fervent exclamations of " De Lord bress ye, we so 
powerful glad you've (;omeI" Some of tlieir welcomes 
were really affecting, and many a visitor that day lis- 
tened with emotion to their simple stories of suffering, 
and their rude but cordial expression of greeting. 

Advancing along these streets, M'e come to the 
district burned in 1861. That tire consumed nearly a 
ffftli part of the city. These ruins, which no attem])t 
has been made to rebuild, stand in all their deso- 
lateness, increased by the havoc of tlie bombardment. 
The tall chimneys, grim and charred, the dilapidated 
walls, overgrown with moss, the cellars, rank with 
grass, weeds and thistles, the streets without pave- 
ment, and ankle-deep with sand, are a startling 
commentary upon the accounts with which we were fa- 
vored during the war, by the Charleston papers, to 
the following effect : 

" The Yankees continue to shell the city, with about 
the usual consequences, of here and there a chimney 
toppled over, and a negro badly frightened, but with 
no actual damage." Now we saw that the entire kiwei' 



4-0 TRIP OF PHK OCKANUS. 

and business ])ai't of tlie city must liave heeii m> de- 
serted :is the ruins of i lercuianeiiiii. 

All the liTaiidees, who tiaunted in their pride of 
wealth :nid cnste. and tl<»ii'i>;e(l theii- ne^'roes irresponsi- 
bly, coininu; everv dolhii- out of the "unrequited" sweat 
and lilood of tlu'ir l)on(lnien, li;i\e fled ])enni]ess and 
mined into tlie interior, while in a stran^'e. vet ever 
righteons revolution of the wheels of j-etributive justice, 
these same negroes, now "■free ;i> I :un," nestle in the 
ancient liontes. ;ind hold their fniitastic jubiliM'- in tlie 
self-same hnlls. which once <^clioed to their o])pressor''s 
I'evels. A xi^ry few have returned, and possess their old 
homestejids, having t:d<(Mi the o;itli of ;dlegiance, some 
heartily :ind to i-eceive the kindly ]>i'(»tectioii i>f our 
forces, but the nmjoiMty oidy through feai". and to save 
what little ]>ro])ei'ty the Rebel govei'unient had left 
them. Many ;i Southern " gentlennm."' wlu> foui' years 
;i!j;o. reioiced in his tbousniids. is to day a xagabond ; or, 
if still i-eni;nning i)i the city. ])i'ofessedlv loyal, is a 
pau])er ;md beneficini-y, on a l(>vel with the most 
wretched contraband who >ue- for alms as you ]>ass. 

Concernini;' the conditi(Ht of th<- iidud)itaiits, Kev. Mr. 
Cuvler, thus writes to the •' Ertnif/f//'\f." 

•'With the exception of a few blockadc-i'unninii' specu- 
lators, who sent their ])i'ofits a.bri>ad for investment, the 
merchants and planters of (^hai'leston are hopelessly 
bankrupt. We saw the cashiei' of the baid< of Chai-les- 
tou come up ti> the commissai"y"'s do(tr, and receive his 
pittance of bread and rice for his daily food, just as tlie 



TRIP OF THE 00EANU8. 41 

refiio::ee iie;L;'i"<"e^^ were doing a few doors off. We went 
througli Secretary Memininger's deserted and once s])leii- 
did mansion; the remaining contraband told us • Massa 
Memmenger sent his money over to Europe; he he up 
in Nort Carohna; he l)e rich to-day.' A gentleman in 
Charleston, says tliat lie saw in the bo()k> of a l)ank in 
Havana, the snm of !^l(H),(i()(i in g(.ld. credited to Jeff- 
erson Davis. (Tt)v. Aiken, toi<l me that if this were so. 
it must he the gift of friends, for saitl he. "Mr. Davis 
spent all his salary, and is considered poor." Xot only 
is (Charleston aristocracy I)ankrnpt. but most of them 
are dead. (tov. Aiken said, sadly enough : ' onr 
most wealthy young men enlisted, many of them 
as privates, they are nearly all dead or in prison ; 
South ('arolina has among her whites, nobody left 
l)ut old men and little boys.' Truly the iron has 
entered into Charleston's proud soul, and she is the 
most blasted, bliglited, broken-hearted desolation on this 
continent. Her cup of misery is tilled to the bi'im. I 
could not exult over her woeful wretchedness, although I 
felt that it was not one whit more than her stu})eii- 
dous sin has richly deserved. She has lived on the 
spoils of the plundered bondmen ; now her turn has 
come for the bondmen to dwell in the deserted places 
of the slave-oci'at. Robert Small, the fanuuis negi'o 
captain of the steamboat "'Planter," (who has now a 
salary of $1,8('0 as her commander,) is al)le to give 
bread to half the l)ank-])residents and brokers of 
Broad St." 



42 TKII' OF THE OCEANUS. 

Upon some of the houses, \\v found })hu'.al•d^ to tlie 
foHowing eifect : 

"8afe-o;uar(l — Protection is herein' o-iven to the pro- 
perty of lie — or ,s/ie — generall_y the hitter — having 

taken the oath of allegiance." 

" This house is occupied hv the permission of the 
Provost-Marshal." 

" Taken — by consent oi' the authorities." 

" To he occupied by the owner, who has taken the 
oath of allegiance to the United States." 

In the windows, or upon the doors of the business- 
houses or sho})s, licenses were posted, declaring that the 
occupant, who had taken the oath, or paid tlie fee re- 
quired by act of Congress, might carry on the business. 

Our examination of the city, during the two hours 
allotted, was necessarily cursory. Tlie time had elapsed, 
and now the passengers were to lie seen returning from 
every direction, laden with flowers of richest hue and 
odor, and lugging together various mementoes and relics 
gathered among the gardens and public buildings. As 
the chronological order of arrangement in this work is 
the most simple and natural, it will be followed, though 
apparently at the sacrifice of unity. We shall therefore 
return, in a succeeding chapter, to a more minute des- 
cription of scenes and incidents in the city of Char- 
leston. 



CHAPTER V. 

Leaving the Oceaiius at the wharf at ten oY^oek. we 
eiubarked on the transport " Golden Gate," for Fort 
Sumter. Tlie scene in the harbor was gay beyond des- 
cription. The ''Oanonicus," i\ Government vessel, crowded 
in every part by the " boys'' in bhie pants and jackets, 
tirst headed up the bay towards the fort. Lines of 
flags, and signals of every color and condjination of 
colors, scores and hundreds in nuiulie]", stretched from 
bowsprit to foremast, from foremast to main, from main 
to niizzen, and from mi/zeu to stern ; crossed and fes- 
tooned from yard to )ard, and upon all the rigging, 
made the vessel a blaze of prisnuitic brilliancy. The 
'' Blackstone," a very large screw-steamer, decked with 
equal profusion of bunting and beauty, next rounded 
majestically into broader waters. Then followed the 
•' Delaw^are" and " Rol)ert Ooit," Government transports, 
l)earing their Imrden of rejoicing and eager patriots. 
Almost central in interest, the '' Planter,'' crowded ;dmost 
to suflbcation u])on her three decks, with Gen. Caxton's 
freedinen, revealed her splashing paddles through the 
broken wheelhouse. Another such a motley crew will 
seldom if ever be seen. Grev-haii'ed old men. whose 



44 



TRIP OF TIIK (K'KANUS. 



wrinkles were lighted ii]> with deep hut (juit't jov ; 
middle-aged men and Avonien, of everv grade of color 
])ossible to Sonthern civilization, the latter decorated 
with bandanas and tui'hans of Hashy colors; comely and 
huxoni girls attired in neat chintz ; cadaverous and 
ragged beings holding about them their tattered gar- 
ments; boys and girls whose julnlation exhibited itself 
in the most astonishing display of ivory ; — all huddled 
together like sheep in a pen, hanging over the gun- 
wales, mounted on the posts, doubled up in furtive 
corners, peering through the gangways, darkening the 
wheel-house, upon the top of which stood Robert Small, 
a prince among them. self-})ossessed. prompt and prond, 
giving his orders to the helmsman in ringing tones of 
connnand. 

An unaccountable delay occurred in the starting of 
the '' Golden Gate.'' But we allayed oui- in)[)atience by 
studying and enjoying the s])lendid spectacular drama 
now being enacted in the harbor, (runs Mere booming, 
bells ringing, bands |)laying the most eidi\ening patri- 
otic airs, men and women were cheerinu' and sinj^inij, 
while we awaited our sailing ordei's from the captain. 
A stiH' breeze was blowing from the westward, throwing 
up the wdiite caps, and fluttering into cheerful music 
the folds of the innumerable flags. The wharves on 
every side were crowded with eager witnesses. At 
length the wheels moved, and we pa;-sed through the 
midst of the anchored fleet, upon one oi' which Me 
counted over three hundred signals and banners, over all 



aR^. 



I'f'J'Mlf'" 4/Li^ 




, 'f'''.i%t 



TRIP OF THE OCEANDS. 45 

of which, wherever (liH.[)hiye(l, waved the uiia]»)>roachalilv 
beautiful and ever superior Hag of '" Stripes and Star>." 

For half an hour or more, we lay rocking- n])(ni the 
swell, while one and another transport landed its load 
at the dock of the fort. We passed the time in study- 
iuii' the storied old I'uin. A ml')), it is, thouiili not so 
utter, as the imagin.itiuns of some ai'tists liave depicted 
it. It is bnilt externally ^^\ brick, and tilled in with 
stone, sand and earth. The walls are ilee[)ly indented 
by the shot hurled against it; the top lines are uneven, 
and in some parts l)attered half way down towards the 
foundation. As it was terribly bondjarded, while in 
Rebel possession, and its wjdls ga\e way by day, l)y 
night the Rebels piled cylindrical baskets tilled with 
sand in all the chasms, and now they rise in rows oi' 
layer-j. six or seven deep, nearly to the original height. 
The casemates are tilled with the broken stone and 
brick, and the most of the port-holes closed. Around 
it, upon the rocks, is a stratum of balls, exploded shells 
and comminuted brick, to the de[)th of several inches. 

The signal being given for the *' Golden Gate" to ap- 
proach, in five minutes we are at the landing; the same 
at which Wigfall. the self-appointed commissioner to 
propose terms to Major Anderson, landed in 18<il, from 
a row-boat. On either side of the platform, upon which 
we debark, was a company of soldiers, with muskets 
shouldered and bayonets fixed — on the left, white, on 
the right, black, rivalling each other in soldierly bear- 
ing. We ascended to the top of the wall, by a fiight of 



46 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

tifty t5te])s. pat^^sed under an ai'lxjr cntraiiec of ever- 
greens, walked across about thirty feet uf earth and 
sand, and h)I tlie interior of tlie iiiurious old fort aj)- 
]iears in view — glorious vet, though in ruins. Im- 
mediately in the centre was the new tiag-staff, sur- 
mounted by circular terraces of grass, and these sur- 
mounted by innnense conical shot and shell, planted 
with the points upward. Before the flag-statf, was a 
large platform carpeted with myrtle, mock-orange, and 
evergreen boughs, the railings festooned and twined 
with the same. Four pillars, fifteen feet in height, rose 
from the corners of the platform, wound with the 
national colors, and knotted with orange wreaths, while 
from their tops, graceful arches were sprung, ternnnat- 
ing together in the centre. Upon the very apex was 
a golden eagle, standing u[)on the flying flag. Rows of 
substantial seats surrounded the platform, which we 
found already nearly filled. The interior of the fort 
presented the appearance of a huge earthwork, for as 
the sides were slowly demolished, the shattered stones 
and sand fell down in slanting grach^ towards the cen- 
tre, and now remain as they were found. Surmount- 
ing the parapet towards Charleston were six large guns, 
ready for the gi'and salute. The (-rowd now gathered 
densely. l)ut were admirably disposed and managed by 
Col. Stuart L. Woodford, wlio was in charge of tiie 
exercises of the day. 

While waiting for the arrival of the orator of the 
day with his party, the flag of the " Planter " was seen 



TRIP OF THE OCEAN US. 47 

above the parapet, slowly waviuu- towards the laiulinu', 
and was greeted with cheers. 

Mr. Win. B. Bradbury, taking- a positit»n at the 
foot of the Hag-staff, then led the \vhole niultitnde in 
singing his resounding song, '' VlGtor;/ at La^t'^ which 
was followed by '' Rally Round the Flag."'' 

A few minutes later, the passengers from the " Arago " 
were brought to the landing, by the " Delaware," and 
were seen crossing the sandy parapet and descending 
the stairway, into the fort. As one and another fa- 
miliar face was discovered, signs of recognition were 
given, breaking out, in two or three instances, into 
ringing cheers. 

Upon the platform, salutations were exchanged for 
a few moments ; and, all preliminaries having been 
duly airanged, the exercises of the day were begun 
and carried forward according to the pre-arranged 
programme, as will now l)e set forth. 

Breathless was the attention with which the vener- 
al)le man was received, who was to offer the 



X. Jntrotruttorn Uniucr. 

Rev. Matthias Harris, Chaplain LI. S. Army, who made the 
pi'ayer at the raising of the Flag, when Major Anderson re- 
moved his command to Fort Sumter, Dec. 27, 1860, now stepped 
slowly to the front of the platform, uncovered his head, silvered 
with age, and while his thin locks streamed in the wind, read a 
brief, but appropriate prayer, with trembling voice, which he 
closed with much emotion, pronouncing a blessing upon the flag 
of his fathers. 



4S TKll' OK 'I'FIK OOEANUS. 

Rev. R. S. SloiTs. Jr.. J). 1).. of lirocklvn. N. V.. then a.l 
vaueecl, and with sonorous and solemn \ oice, read the tblJowing: 

2. .^election from tbc |psalms. 

('I'lic :isscMil)ly makiiii; the rfi^poiiM'-. i 
Psalm ]'^(j. 

1. When the l^oi'd tui-ncd a^ain tlie ra|)ti\ity ot' Zion. we 
weie like them that <licam. 

2. Then was our montli lillrd \\iih laughter and our tongue 
with singing : then said tlie\ among the heathen, The Lord hath 
done great things t'oi- them. 

.'>. The Loid lialli done great things liu- us. w hei-eot' we are 
glad.^^ 

4. Tiii-n again our eaptivit\ . < > Lord, as the streams in the 
south. 

5. They that sow in tears, shall reap in joy. 

(\. He that goeth t()rth and weepeth. bearing pi'eeious seed, 
shall d<»ul)tless come again with I'ejoicing. bringing his sheaves 
w ith him. 

Psalm 47. 

L () elap \ oin- hands: all ye peo|)le. shout inito (4od with the 
voiee of trimuph. 

2. For the Lord most high is terrible; he is a great King 
above all the eai'th. 

o. He shall subdue the people under us. and the nariiuis under 
our feet. 

4. He shall choose our inheritance tor us, the excellency of 
Jaeol) whom he loved. 

5. Grod is gone up w ith a shout, the LonI w ith the sound of a 
trumpet. 

(). Sing praises to God. sing praises: sing pi'aises unto onr 
King, sing praises. 

7. For God is the King <>f all the earth : sing \e ]u-aises with 
understanding. 

8. God reigiieth over the heathen ; God sitteth upon the 
throne of his holiness. 



TRIP OF TTIK OOEANUS. 49 

9. The princes of the people are gathered together, even the 
people of the God of Abraham ; for the shields of the earth be- 
long unto fxod : He is gi-eatly exalted. 

Psalm OS. 

1. sing unto the Lord a new song: for he hath done marvel- 
ous things: his right hand and his holy arm hath gotten him the 
victory. 

2. The Lord hath made known his salvation : his righteousness 
hath he openly shew^ed in the sight of the heathen. 

3. He hath rememl)ered his mercy and truth toward the House 
of Israel : all the ends nt" the earth have seen the salvation of our 
God. 

4. Make a joyful noise uiit(» the Loi-d, all the earth: make a 
loud noise and I'ejoice and sing praises. 

5. Sing unto the fjOrd with the harp ; with the harp and the 
voice of a psalm. 

(). With trumpets and sound of coi-net. make a joyful noise be- 
foi'e the Lord, the King. 

7. Let the sea roar and the fulness thereof: the world and they 
that dwell therein. 

8. Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills l)e joyful to- 
gether 

9. Before the Lord: for lie eonu'th to judge the earth: witli 
righteousness shall he judge the woi'ld and the peo|ile with equity. 

Part ok Psalm 20. 

(Rend by Minister and people toocther,) 

Some trust in chariots, and S(une in horses, l)ut we will remem- 
ber the Name of the Lord our (to(I. 

We will rejoice in Thy salvation, and in the Ncnrw of o^ir God, 

WE WILL SET UP OUR BANNERS ! 

Minister — Glory be to the Father, and to the Son. and to the 
Holy Ghost : 

Ansver — As it was in the beginning, is now. and ever shall be, 
world without end. Amen. 



50 TRIP OF THE OOKANUS. 

to the Government, dated Steamship Baltic, off Sandy Hook, 
April 18, 1861, announcing the fall of Fort Sumter, was read by 
Brevet Brigadier-General E. D. Townsend. Assistant Adjutant- 
General, U. S. A. 

4. '• Raising and planting upon the ruins of Fort Sumter 
TiiK SAME United States Flag which floated over the battle- 
ments of the Fort during the rebel assault, April 14, 1861, by 
Brevet Major-General Kobej-t Anderson, U. S. A. As soon as 
the flag is i-aised, a salute of one hundred guns will l)e fired from 
Fort Sumter, and a national salute from every fort and rebel 
battery that fired npon Fort Sumter. The band will play national 
airs." 

Thus it was annoniu-ed n]wn the i)rogrHinine for the 
day. 

But Heaven forbid that we should pass this wonder- 
ful, soul-tlirilling event, without more extended notice ! 

As soon as Gen. Townsend luul finislied reading 
Major Anderson's Despatch, Sergeant Hart brought 
forward a new mail-bag, which contained the original 
flag. The first glimpse of the precious emblem, as it 
came forth to the light once more from its long and 
cai'efully guarded seclusion, was the signal for the 
most tumultuous cheers. It w^as made fast to the 
halyards by three of the crew of the " Juniata," with a 
beautiful wreath of evergreens, thickly studded with 
roses and blossoms of the mock-orange, just above it. 

General Anderson stood by it upon the terrace. 
Connningled joy and sadness struggled upon his manly 
face. His hair, thickly sprinkled with grey, was 
stirred by the winds u])on his uncovered head. His 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 51 

erect, soldierly torm was the centre of every gaze. 
For a inoineiit, he spoke not. He seemed wrestling 
with intense emotion, as if living over again, in that 
moment, the terrible scenes of fonr years before, and 
as if conscions that throngh the ten thonsand eyes of 
that vast assemblage, the whole nation was looking 
at him. At length, with snbdned voice and scarcely 
mastered emotion, he spoke as follows : 

" I am here my friends, mj fellow-citizens, and fel. 
low soldiers, to perform an act of dnty to my coun- 
try dear to my heart, and which all of you will ap- 
preciate and feel. Had I observed the wishes of my 
heart, it should have been done in silence : but in 
accordance with the request of the Honorable Secre- 
tary of War, r make a few remarks, as by his order, 
after four long, long years of war, I rest(jre to its 
proper ])lace this tiag which tioated here during jjeace, 
before the tirst act of this cruel Rebellion. (Here 
taking the halyards in his hands, he pi'oceeded.) I 
thank God that I have lived to see this day, and 
to be here to perform this, perhaps the last act of mv 
life, of duty to mv country. 

" 1 thank (lod M'ho has so signally blessed us, who 
has blessed us beyond measure. May all the nations 
bless and praise the name of the Lord, and jn'oclaim 
' Glorj to (xod in the highest, and on earth ])eace, 
good will towards men.' " 

As the voice of the General, the hero of the hour 
was l)orne away upon the air, he grasped the hal- 



.)Z TRIP OF THK OCKAXUS. 

yards, and witli sti'oni>- and steady ])ull. lifted the 
nntion's syndx)! from the green turf, and as the old 
smoke-stained. shot-])iei'eed flai>\ with in>t a single >tar 
smitten or ctlaced from its fold of hlue, rose slowly 
npward to its native air. and its folds were eanght l>y 
the ocean l)reeze as in joyous welcome again, the 
whole multitude, citizens, soldiers, officers, that tilled 
the interioi'. and s;it u|)on the sandy slopes and pai'a- 
pet of the foi't. l>y a s|)ontaneous and irrepres^^ible 
im])ulse, rose to their feet, waived hats and handker- 
chiefs with frantic exultation above their heads, and 
with one long, |)ealing, deatening, ecxtatic shout of 
triumpli hailed the dear Hag until it touched the 
peak. Semitoi's. (lenerals. (Mergymen. Editors and 
Civilians u])(»n tlie ])latf>rni, to whom the end of the 
halyards w;is passed, surged away upon it as though 
theii' hands alone were lifting "Old (ilory"* to it place. 
The excited multitude wrung each other's hands in 
joy, hu/.zalied until they were hoarse, wept and laughed 
by tui-ns. and when the song broke forth, 

" The star-npangled Ijanner, O long may it wave I 
OVr the land of the free, and the home of the brave !" 

tears of gladness tilled every eye. and flowed down 
cheeks unused to wee[>iug, and in the seething jubi- 
lant throng an<l melting weltering chorus of Ave thous- 
and voices, we seemed to discover no inapt type 
and foi-eshadowing of the vast multitude which shall 
stand u])on the sea of glass, having the harps of God, 
and singing •' Crreat and niai'vellous are thy works, 




THE RAISING OF THE FLAG. 



TKIP OF THK OOEANUS. 53 

Lord God Alniiglity ; just and true are thy ways, 
thou King of Saints !''' 

And the Hag itself, as if true to its instincts and 
mission, flung its emblematic folds directly over the 
waters of the harljor, and towards the conquered city 
of Charleston. That cradle of the Rebellion cannot 
escape the domination of the '' flag of the free heart's 
hope and home !" 

The instant the banner touched the ])eak, the six 
guns u})on the parapet of Sumter, looking towards 
Charleston, pealed forth their detonations. 

Then, answering, from all the surrounding fortiflca- 
tions — Forts Moultrie, Ripley, Pinckney, Putnam, Johnson, 
Cumining's Point. Battery Bee — from every batter}'' 
that took part in the l)ombardment of Fort Sumter 
in 1S61, and from all the vessels of war in the 
harbor, came the thunder of mighty cannon, in na- 
tional salute, until tlie " earth shook and trembled," 
and the air grew dark with the gathering clouds of 
smoke which rolled their dun and murky volume over 
the harbor, shutting out from sight at length the 
city, and the lightning flash of the cannonade. 

There was a general stampede from the interior, to 

the walls of tlie fort, that the sense of sight as well 

as of hearing, might be gratifled. Those who were 

flrst upon this outlook describe the cordon of fire by 

which they were surrounded as something startlingly 

magnificent. But those who reached the parapet later 

returned disappointed, for it was only like looking 

4 



04 TKIl' OF THE OCEANUS. 

into a i):iiik of loo-, und the sand, stirred up by the 
re(H)il of Fort Sumter's guns, was driven into their 
eyes in hlinding- chmds. They were ghid to resume 
their seats, and at tlie ex]»irati()n of the salute, wliieh 
lasted al)(;ut half an liour, compose themselves to lis- 
ten to the next grand exercise upon the programme. 

6. ^Ijc l^bbrcss, bg tin gcb. |)cnrD U^larb Scctfjcr. 

As Mr. Beecher came forward uj)on the jilatform, 
ho was greeted with a round of cheers. This liev. 
gentleman, who luis contended witli foemen of idmost 
every kind, found two antagonists awaiting him, 
which, with his usual dexterity, he baffled upon this 
occasion. Tliese were his niannscript, in detaclied 
leaves, and a strong northwesterly wind. At iirst 
onset, he removed his grey felt hat from his head, 
and lield his mss. in his left hand. Ihit the indis- 
criminate wind toyed so familiarly with his iron-grey 
ear-locks, and played such fantasias uj»on tlie thin 
leaves of his address, that lie placed his errant locks 
again in continenient, and addressed himself with both 
hands to his refractory documents. He had ci)n<piei'ed. 

Mr. Beecher i'ead his entire oration, pausing once 
midway, to rest his overtaxed voice, while the band 
yjlayed a patriotic air. 

The address was carefully composed, and thoroughly 
considered. Clearness and force nnirked all its pei'iods. 
The principles laid down were emphatic, and almost 
exhaustive. The policy of the Government was sharply 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS, 55 

detiiied, and the feeling of the people laithfully re- 
presented. 

In delivery, it lacked the peculiar magnetism of his 
less studied eiforts, but his decision to commit all his 
thoughts to paper, commended itself to e\'ery Letter 
judgment. From beginning to end, he seemed dee[)ij 
impressed with the consciousness that he was speaking, 
at least, semi-officially, and that his utterances would 
be regarded, not only as the voice of the authorities 
at the Capital, and of all the nation, 'but would pass 
from that hour into history. But as a verbatim re- 
port of the entire address is here introduced, every 
reader of this volume may become his own connnentator. 

It has already been widely circulated, and universally 
read, and is included within these pages, not to give 
to it ])ul)licity, but that tJiey may have, at least, one 
adornment, and because their humble record would l)e 
sadly incomplete without it. 

TPIE ADDRESS. 

On this solemn and joyful day, we again lift to the bi-eeze, 
our fathei''s flag, now, again, the banner of the United States, 
with the fervent prayer that God would crown it with honor, 
protect it from treason, and send it down to our children, with all 
the blessings of civilization, liberty and religion. Terrible 
in battle, may it he beneficent in peace. Happily, no bird 
or beast of prey has been inscribed ujjou it. The stars that 
redeem the night from darkness, and the beams of red light 
that beautify the morning, have been united upon its folds. 
As long as the sun endures, or the stars, may it wave over 
a nation neither enslaved nor enslaving. (Great applause.) 
Once, and but once, has treason dishonored it. hi that insane 



56 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

hour, when the guiltiest and bloodiest rebellion of time hurled 
their (ires upon this fort, you, sir, (turning to General Ander- 
son) and a small heroic band, stood within these now crumb- 
led walls, and did gallant and just battle for the honor and 
defence of the nation's banner. (Applause.) 

In that cope of fire this glorious flag still peacefully waved 
to the breeze abo\e your head, miconscious of harm as the 
stars and sl<ies above it. Once it was shot down. A gallant 
hand, in whose care this day it has l)een, plucked it from 
the ground, and reai-ed it again, — "cast down but not destroy- 
ed." After a vain resistance, with trembling hand and sad 
heart, you withdrew it from its height, closed its u ings, and 
bore it far away, sternly to sleep amid the tumults of rebel- 
lion and the thunder of battle. The first act of war had 
begun. The long night of four years had set in. While the 
giddy traitors whirled in a maze of exhileration, dim hor- 
rors were already advancing, that were ere long to fill the land 
with blood. 

To-day you are returned again. We devoutly join with you 
in thanksgiving to Almighty God, that he has spared your 
honored life, and vouchsafed you the honors of this day. The 
heavens over you are the same; the same shores; morning 
comes, and evening, as they did. All else, how changed ! 
What grim batteries crowd the burdened shores ! What 
scenes have filled this air and disturbed these waters ! These 
shattered heaps of shapeless stone are all that is left of Fort 
Sumter. Desolation broods in yonder sad city — solemn retri- 
bution hath avenged our dishonored banner ! You have come 
back with honor, who departed hence, four years ago, leaving 
the air sultry with fanaticism. The surging crowds that roll- 
ed up their frenzied shouts, as the flag came down, are dead, 
or scattered, or silent ; and their habitations are desolate. Ruin 
sits in the cradle of treason. Rebellion has perished. But, there 
flies the same flag that was insulted. (Great and pi'olonged ap- 
plause.) With starry eyes it looks all over this bay for that ban- 
ner that supplanted it, and sees it not. (Apjjlause.) You that 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 57 

then, for the day, were humbled, are here aga'ii, to triumph once 
and forever. (Applause.) In the storm of that assault this glori- 
ous ensign was often struck ; hut, memorable fact, not one of its 
siars was t(n'n out, by shot or shell. (Applause.) It was a pro- 
phecy. 

It said : " Not one State shall be struck from tliis nation by 
treason !" (Applause.) The fulfillment is at hand. Lifted to 
the air, to-day, it proclaims, after four years of war, " Not a State 
is blotted out !" (Applause.) 

Hail to the flag of our fathers, and our flag ! Glory to the ban- 
ner that has gone through four years black with tempests of war, 
to pilot the nation back to peace without dismemberment ! And 
glory be to God, who, above all hosts and banners, hath ordained 
victory, and shall ordain peace ! (Applause.) 

Wherefore have we come hither, pilgrims from distant places 1 
Are we come to exult that Northern hands are stronger than 
Southern'? No, but to rejoice that the hands of those who defend 
a just and beneficent government are mightier than the hands that 
assaulted it ! (x\pplause.) Do we exult over fallen cities? We 
exult that a Nation has not fallen. (Applause.) We sorrow with 
the sorrowful. We sympathize with the desolate. We look upon 
this shattered fort, and yonder dilapidated city, with sad eyes, 
grieved that men should have committed such treason, and glad 
that God hath set such a mark upon treason that all ages shall 
dread and abhor it. (Applause.) 

We exult, not for a passion gratified, but for a sentiment victo- 
rious ; not for temper, but for conscience ; not as we devoutly 
believe that our will is done, but that God's will hath been done. 
We should be unworthy of that liberty entrusted to our care, if, 
on a such a day as this, we sullied our hearts by feelings of 
aimless vengeance ; and equally unworthy, if we did not devout- 
ly thank Him who hath said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, 
saith the Lord, that he hath set a mark upon arrogant Rebellion, 
inefFaceable while time lasts ! 

Since this flag went down on that dark day, who shall tell the 
mighty woes that have made this land a spectacle to angels and 



58 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 



men ? The soil has (h-unk bh)od,and is glutted. Millions mourn 
for millions slain; or, envying the dead, pray for oblivion. Towns 
and villages have been razed. Fruitful fields have turned back to 
vpilderness. It came to pass, as the prophet said : The sun was 
firmed to darkness, and the rnoon to blood. The course of law was 
ended. The sword sat chief magistrate in half the nation; indus- 
ti-y was pai-alyzed ; morals corrupted ; the public weal invaded 
by rapine and anarchy ; whole States ravaged by avenging 
armies. The world was amazed. The earth reeled. When the 
flag sank here, it was as if ])olitieal night had come, and all beasts 
of prey had come forth to devour. 

That long night is ended ! And for this returning day we have 
come from afar, to rejoice and give thanks. No more war ! No 
more accursed secession ! No more slavery, that spawned them 
both ! (Great applause.) 

Let no man misread the meaning of this unfolding flag ! It 
says, " Government hath returned hither." It proclaims in the 
name of vindicated government, peace and protection to loyalty ; 
humiliation and pains to traitors. This is the flag of sovereignty. 
The nation, not the States, is sovereign. Restored to authority, 
this flag commands, not supplicates. 

There may be pardon, but no concession. (Great applause.) 
There may be amnesty and oblivion, but no honied compromises. 
(Applause.) The nation to-day has peace for the peaceful, and 
war for the turbulent. (Applause.) The only condition of sub- 
mission, is, to sxihmit! (Laughter and applause.) There is the 
Constitution, there are the laws, there is the Government. They 
rise up like mountains of strength that shall not be moved. They 
are the conditions of peace. 

One 'nation, under one government, witho^it slavery, has been 
ordained, and shall stand. There can be peace on no other l)asis. 
On this basis reconstruction is easy, and needs neither archi- 
tect or engineer. Without this basis no engineer or architect 
shall ever reconstruct these rebellious States. 

We do not want your cities nor your fields. We do not envy 
you your prolific soil, nor heavens full of perpetual summer. Let 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 59 

agriculture revel here ; let manufactures make cvei-y stream 
twice musical ; buikl fleets in every 2^<^''t ; inspire the arts of 
peace with genius second only to that of Athens ; and we shall 
be glad in your gladness, and rich in your wealth. 

All that we ask is unswerving loyalty, and universal liberty. 
(Applause.) And that, in the name of this ]>Agh soverehinty of 
the United States of America, we demand ; and that, with the 
blessing of Almighty God, we will have! (Great applause.) 

We raise our Father's banner that it may bring back better 
blessings than those of old ; that it may cast out the devil of dis- 
cord ; that it may restore lawful government, and a prosperity- 
purer and more enduring than that which it protected l)efore ; 
that it naay win parted friends from their alienation ; that it may 
inspire hope, and inaugurate universal liberty ; that it may say to 
the sword, " Return to thy sheath^'' and to the plow and sickle, 
" Oo forth f that it may heal all jealousies, unite all policies, in- 
spire a new national life, compact our strength, purify our princi- 
ples, ennoble our national ambitions, and make this people great 
and strong, not for aggression and quarrelsomeness, but for the 
peace of the world, giving to us the glorious prerogative of leading 
all nations to juster laws, to more humane policies, to sincerer 
friendship, to rational, instituted civil liberty, and to universal 
Christian l)rotherhood. 

Reverently, piously, in hopeful patriotism, we spread this ban- 
ner on the sky, as of old the bow was planted on the cloud ; and, 
with solemn fervor, beseech God to look upon it, and make it the 
memorial of an everlasting covenant and decree, that never again 
on this fair land shall a deluge of blood prevail. (Applause.) 

Why need any eye turn from this spectacle '] Are there not 
associations which, overleaping the recent past, carry us back to 
times when, over North and South, this flag was honored alike by 
all 1 In all our colonial days, we were one ; in the long Revolu- 
tionary struggle ; and in the scores of prosperous years succeed- 
ing. When the passage of the Stamp Act in 17G5 aroused the 
colonies, it was Gadsden of South Carolina that cried with presci- 
ent enthusiasm : " We stand on the broad, common ground of 



60 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

those udtvral rights that ive all feel and know as men. There 
ought to be no New England man, no New Yorkei-, known on 
this continent, but all of us," said he, " Americans." That was 
the voice of South Carolina. That shall he the voice of South 
Carolina. Faint is the echo ; but it is coming. We now hear it 
sighing sadly through the pines ; l)ut it shall yet break upon the 
shore — no North, no West, no South, l)ut one [Tnited States of 
America. (Applause.) 

There is scarcely a man born in the South who has lifted his 
hand against this banner, but had a father who would have died 
for it. Is memory dead? Is there no historic pride? Has a 
fatal fury struck blindness or hate into eyes that used to look 
kindly toward each other ; that read the same Bible ; that hung 
over the same historic pages of our national glory ; that studied 
the same Constitution ? 

Let this uplifting bring back all of the past that was good, but 
leave in darkness all that was bad. 

It was never before so wholly uns]3otted ; so clear of all wrong; 
so purely and simply the sign of Justice and Liberty. Did I say 
that we brought back the same banner that you bore away, noble 
and heroic sir? It is not the same. It is more and better than it 
was. The land is free from slavery, since that banner fell. 

When God would prepare Moses for Emancipation, he over- 
threw his first steps, and drove him for forty years to brood in 
the wilderness. When our flag came down, four years it lay 
brooding in darkness. It cried to the Lord, " Wherefore am I 
deposed ?" Then arose before it a vision of its sin. It had 
strengthened the strong, and forgotten the weak. It proclaimed 
liberty, but trod upon slaves. 

In that seclusion it dedicated itself to liberty. Behold, to-day, 
it fulfills its vows? When it went down four million people had 
no flag. To-day it rises, and four niillicni people cry out, '-Be- 
hold onr flag ?" Hark ! they murmur. It is the Gospel that 
they recite in sacred words ; " It is a Gospel to the poor, it heals 
our broken hearts, it preaches deliverance to captives, it gives 
sight to the blind, it sets at liberty them that are bruised." Rise 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 61 

up, then, glorious Gosp.l Banner, and roll out these messages of 
God. Tell the air that not a spot now sullies thy whiteness. 
Thy red is not the blush of shame, but the flush of joy. Tell the 
dews that wash thee that thou art pure as they. Say to the night, 
that thy stars lead toward the morning ; and to the morning, that 
a brighter day arises with healing in its wings. And then, oh 
glorious flag, bid the sun pour light on all thy folds with double 
brightness, whilst thou art bearino- around and round the world 
the solemn joy — a race set free ! a nation redeemed ! 

The mighty hand of Government, made strong in war, by the 
favor of the God (A' Battles, spreads wide to-day the banner of 
liberty that went down in darkness, that arose in light ; and thei-e 
it streams, like the sun above it, neither parceled out nor monopo- 
lized, but flooding the air with light for all mankind. Ye scatter- 
ed and broken, ye wounded and dying, Ijitten by the fiery ser- 
pents of oppression, everywhere, in all the world, look upon this 
sign, lifted up, and live. And ye homeless and houseless slaves, 
look, and ye are free. At length you, too, have part and lot in 
this glorious ensign, that broods with impartial love over small 
and great, the poor and the strong, the bond and the free. 

In this solemn hour, let us pray for the quick coming of recon- 
ciliation and happiness, under this common flag! 

But, we must build again, from the foundations, in all these 
now free Southern States. No cheap exhortation " to forgetful- 
ness of the past, to restore all things as they were," will do. 
God does not stretch out his hand, as he has for four dreadful 
years, that men may easily forget the might of his terrible acts. 
Restore things as they were? What, the alienations and jeal- 
ousies? The discords and contentions, and the causes of them? 
No. In that solemn sacriflce on which a nation has offered up 
for its sins so many precious victims, loved and lamented, let our 
sins and mistakes be consumed utterly and forever. 

No, never again shall things be restored as before the wai-. It 
is written in God's decree of events fulfille<l, "Old things are pass- 
ed away." That new earth, in which dwcileth I'ighteousuess, 
draws near. 



62 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

Things as they were? Who has an omnipotent hand to restore 
a million dead, slain in battle, or wasted by sickness, or dying of 
gi-ief, 1)roken-hearted 1 Who has omniscience, to search for the 
scattered ones? Who shall restore the lost to broken families? 
Who shall bring back the squandered treasure, the years of in- 
dustry wasted, and convince you that four years of guilty rebel- 
lion, and cruel war, are no more than dirt upon the hand, which a 
moment's washing removes, and leaves the hand clean as before? 
Such a war reaches down to the very vitals of society. 

Emerging from such a prolonged rebellion, he is blind who 
tells you that the State, by a mere amnesty and benevolence of 
Government, can be put again, by a mere decree, in its old place. 
It would not be honest, it would not be kind or fraternal, for me 
to pretend that Southern revolution against the Union, has not 
reacted, and wrought revolution in the Southern States them- 
selves, and inaugurated a new dispensation. 

Society is like a broken loom, and the piece which rebellion 
put in, and was weaving, has been cut, and every thread broken. 
You must put in new warp and new woof — and, weaving anew, 
as the fabric slowly unwinds, we shall see in it no gorgon figures, 
no hideous grotesques of the old barbarism, but the figures of 
liberty, vines and golden grains, framing in the heads of Justice, 
Love, and Liberty ! 

The august Convention of 1787, framed the Constitution with 
this memorable preamble: "We, the people of the United States, 
in order to form a more i»erfect Union, establish justice, insure 
domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote 
the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to our- 
selves and our posterity, do ordain this Constitution for the 
United States of America." 

Again, in the awful Convention of war, the people of the 
United States, fi>r the very ends just recited, have debated, settled 
and ordained, certain fundamental truths, which must henceforth be 
accepted and obeyed. Nor is any State, or any individual wise, 
who shall disregard them. They are to civil affairs, what the natural 
laws are to health — indispensable conditions ot peace and happiness. 



TKIP OF THE OCEANITS. 63 

What are the ordinances given by the people, speaking out of 
tire and darkness of war, with authority nispired by that same God, 
who gave the hiws from Sinai amid thunders and trumpet voices? 

1. That these United States shall be one and indivisible. 

2. That States are not absolute sovereigns, and have no right 
to dismember the republic. 

3. That universal liberty is indispensable to Republican Gov- 
ernment, and that slavery shall be utterly and forever abolished ? 

Such are the results of war ! These are the best fruits of the 
war. They are worth all they have cost. They are foundations 
of peace. They will secure benefits to all nations, as well as to us. 

Our highest wisdom and duty is to accept the facts, as the 
decrees of God. We are exhorted to forget all that has happened. 
Yes, the wrath, the conflict, the cruelty, but not those overruling 
decrees of God, which this war has pronounced. As solemnly as 
on Mount Sinai, God says, "Remember! remember!'''' Hear it, 
to-day. Under this sun, under that bright child of the sun, our 
banner, with the eyes of this nation and of the world upon us, we 
repeat the syllables of God's Providence, and recite the solemn 
decrees : 

No MORE Disunion ! 

No more Secession ! 

No MORE Slavery ! (Applause.) 

Why did this civil war begin ? 

We do not wonder that European statesmen failed to com- 
prehend this conflict, and foreign philanthropists were shocked at a 
murderous war, that seemed to have had no moral origin; but, 
like the l)rutal fights of beasts of prey, to have sprung tixim 
ferocious animalism. This great nation, filling all profitable lat- 
itudes, cradled between two oceans, with inexhaustible resources, 
with riches increasing in an unparalleled ratio, by agricultui'e, by 
manufactures, by commerce, with schools and churches, with 
books and newspapers, thick as leaves in our own forests, with 
institutions sprung from the people, and peculiarly adapted to 
their genius ; a nation not sluggish, but active, used to excite- 
ment, practiced in political wisdom, and accustomed to self-gov- 



64 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

ernment, and all its vast outlying parts held together by a federal 
government, mild in temper, gentle in administration, and ben- 
eficent in results, we do not wonder that it is not understood abroad. 

All at once, in this hemisphere of happiness and hope, there 
came trooping clouds with fiery bolts, full of death and desolation. 
At a cannon shot upon this fort, all the nation, as if they had been 
a trained army lying on their arms, awaiting a signal, rose up and 
began a war which for awfulness, rises into the first rank of bad 
eminence. The front of battle, going with the sun, was twelve 
hundred miles long ; and the depth, measured along a meridian, 
was a thousand miles. In this vast area, more than two million 
men. first and last, for four years, have in skirmish, fight and 
battle, met in more than a thousand confiicts ; while a coast and 
river line, not less than four thousand miles in length, has 
swarmed with fleets, freighted with artillery. The very industry 
of the country seemed to have been touched by some infernal 
wand, and with cnie wheel, changed its front from peace to war. 
The anvils of the land beat like drums. As out of the ooze 
emerge monsters, so from our mines and founderies uprose new 
and strange machines of war, iron-clad. 

And so, in a nation of peaceful habits, without external pro- 
vocation, there arose such a storm of war, as blackened the whole 
horizon and hemisphere. What wonder that foreign oijservers 
stood amazed at this fanatical fury, that seemed without divine 
guidance, Ijut inspired wholly with infernal frenzy ? 

The explosion was sudden, but the train had long been laid. 
We must consider the condition of Southern society, if we would 
understand the mystery of this iniquity. Society in the South, 
resolves itself into three divisions, more sharply distinguished 
than in any other part of the nation. At the base is the laboring 
class, made up of slaves. Next is the middle class, made up of 
traders, small farmers, and pool- men. The lower edge of this 
class touched the slave, and the upper edge reached up to the third 
and ruling class. This class were a small minority in numbers, 
but in practiced alnlity, they had centered in their hands the whole 
government of the South, and had mainly governed the country. 



TRIP OF THE OOEANUS. 65 

Upon this polished, cultured, exceedingly capable and wholly 
unprincipled class, rests the whole burden of this wai-. Foix-ed 
up by the bottom heat of slavery, the ruling class, in all the dis- 
loyal States, arrogated to themselves a superiority not com- 
patible with republican equality, nor with just morals. They 
claimed a right of pre-eminence. An evil prophet arose who 
trained these wild and luxuriant shoots of ambition to the shapely 
form of a political philosophy. 

By its re-agents they precipitated drudgery to the liottom of 
society, and left at the top what they thought to be a claritied 
fluid. In their political economy, labor was to be ownerl by cap- 
ital. In their theory of government, a few were to rule the many. 
They boldly avowed, not the fact alone, that under all forms of 
government, the few rule the many, but their right and duty to 
do so. Set free from the necessity of labor, they conceived a con- 
tempt for those who felt its wholesome regimen. Believing them- 
selves foreordained to supremacy, they regarded the popular vote, 
when it failed to register their wishes, as an intrusion and a 
nuisance. They were born in a garden, and popular liberty, like 
freshets, overswelling their banks, but covered their dainty walks 
and flowers with slime and mud — of Democratic votes. (Ap- 
plause). 

When, with shrewd observation, they saw the growth of the 
popular element in the Northern States, they instinctively took 
in the inevitable events. It must be controlled, or cut oft' from a 
nation governed by gentlemen ! Controlled, less and less, could it 
be, in every decade; and they prepared secretly, earnestly, and 
with wide conference and mutual connivance. 

We are to distinguish between the pretences, and means, and 
causes of this war. 

To inflame and unite the great middle class of the South, who 
had no interest in separation, and no business with war, they 
alleged grievances that never existed, and employed arguments 
which they better than all other men, knew to be specious and 
false. Slavery itself was cared for only as an instrument of 
power, or of excitement. They had unalterably fixed their eyes 



66 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

Upon empire, and all was good which would secure that, and bad 
which hindered it. 

Thus, the ruling class of the South — an aristocracy as intense, 
pi-oud and inflexible as ever existed — not limited either by 
customs or institutions, not recognized and adjusted in the regular 
order of society, playing a reciprocal part in its machinery, but 
secretly disowning its own existence, baptized with ostentatious 
names of democracy, obsequious to the people for the sake of gov- 
erning them ; this nameless, lurlving . ristocracy, that ran in the 
blood of society like a rash, not yet come to the skin; this 
political tapeworm, that produced nothing, but lay coiled in the 
l)ody, feeding on its nutriment, and holding the whole structure 
but a servant set up to nourish it — this aristocracy of the plan- 
tation, with firm and deliberate resolve, brought on the war, that 
they might cut the land in two ; and clearing themselves from in- 
corrigible free society, set up a sterner, statelier empire, where 
slaves worked that gentlemen might live at ease. Nor can there 
be any doubt that though, at first, they meant to erect the form 
of republican government, this was Init a device ; a step necessary 
to the securing of that power by which they should be able to 
change the whole economy of society. 

That they never dreamed of such a war, we may well believe. 
That they would have accepted it, though twice as bloody, if only 
thus they could rule, none can doubt that knows the temper of 
these worst men of modern st)ciety. (Applause). But, they 
miscalculated. They understood the people of the South ; but 
they were totally incapable of understanding the character of the 
great working classes of the loyal States. That industry which is 
the foundation of independence, and so of equity, they stigmatized 
as stupid drudgery, or as mean avarice. That general intelligence 
and independence of thought, which schools for the common 
people and newspapers breed, they reviled as the incitement of 
unsettled zeal, running easily into fanaticism. 

They more thoroughly misunderstood the profound sentiment 
of loyalty ; the deep love of country which pervaded the com- 
mon people. If those who knew them best had never suspected 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 07 

the depth and power of that love of country which threw it into 
an agony of grief when the flag was hei'e hunibknl, how sliould 
theij conceive of it, who were wholly disjoined from them in sym- 
pathy ? The whole land rose up, you remember, when the flag 
came down, as if inspired unconsci<')usly by the breath of the Al- 
mighty, and the power of omnipotence. It was as wlien one 
pierces the banks of the Mississippi for a rivulet, and the whole 
raging stream plunges through with headlong course. There they 
calculated, and m^scalculated ! 

And more than all, they miscalculated the bravery of men who 
have been ti-ained under law, who are civilized, and hate [)ers()nal 
brawls, who are so protected by society as to have dismissed all 
thought of self-defence, the whole force of whose life is turned to 
peaceful pursuits. These arrogant conspirators against govern- 
ment, with Chinese vanity, believed that they could blow away 
these self respecting citizens, as chaff" from the battle-field. Few 
of them are left alive to ponder their mistake ! 

Here, then, are the roots of this civil war. It was not a quar- 
rel of wild beasts, it was an inflection of the strife of ages, be- 
tween powder and right, between ambition and equity. An armed 
band of pestilent conspirators sought the nation's life. Her child- 
ren rose up and fought at every door, and room and hall, to 
thrust out the murderers, and save the house and household. 
It was not legitimately a war between the common people of 
the North and South. The war was set on by the ruling 
class, the aristocratic conspirators of the South. They suborn- 
ed the common people with lies, with sophistries, with cruel 
deceits and slanders, to fight for secret objects which they 
abhorred, and against interests as dear to them as their own 
lives. 

I charge the whole guilt of this war upon the ambitious, educa- 
ted, plotting, political leaders of the South. (Applause.) They 
have shed this ocean of blood. Tiiey have desolated the South. 
They have poured poverty through all her towns and cities. 
They have bewildered the imagination of the people with phan- 
tasms, and led them to believe that they were fighting for their 



(')S TRIP OF TJIE OCEANUS. 

homos and liberty, whose homes were uiithi-eatened, and whose 
liberty was in no jeopardy. 

These arrogant instigators of ei\il war have renewed the 
plagues of Egypt, not that the oppressed might go free, but that 
the free might be oppressed. A day will come when God will 
i-eveal judgment, and arraign at his bar these mighty miscreants ; 
and tlien every orphan that their bloody game has made, and 
e\-ery widow that sits sorrowing, and every maimed and wound- 
ed sufferer, and every bereaved heart in all the wide regions of 
this land, will rise up and come before the Lord to lay upon these 
chief culprits of modern history their aw^ful witness. And from a 
thousand battle-fields shall rise up armies of airy witnesses, who, 
with the memory of their awful sufferings, shall confront these 
miscreants with shrieks of fierce accusation ; and every pale and 
starved prisoner shall raise his skinny hand in judgment. Blood 
shall call out for vengeance, and tears shall plead for justice, and 
grief shall silently beckon, and love, heai't-smitten, shall wail for 
justice. Good men and angels will cry out, " How long, oh Lord, 
how long, wilt thou not avenge V 

And, then, these guiltiest and most remorseless traitors, these 
high and cultured men with might and wisdom, used for the des- 
truction of their counti-y ; these most accursed and detested of all 
ci-iminals, that have drenched a continent in needless blood, and 
moved the foundations of their times with hideous crimes and 
cruelty, caught up in black clouds, full of voices of vengeance and 
lurid with punishment, shall be whirled aloft and plunged dow^n- 
ward forever and forever in an endless retribution ; while God 
shall say, "Thus shall it be to all who betray their country" ; 
and all in heaven and upon the earth will say "Amen !" (Voices: 
Amen ! Amen !) 

But for the people misled, i'<n- the multitudes drafted and driven 
into this civil war, let not a trace of animosity remain. (Ap- 
plause.) The moment the willing hand drops the musket, and 
they return to their allegiance, then stretch out your own honest 
right hand to greet them. Recall to them the old days of kind- 
ness. Our hearts wait for their redemption. All the resources 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. (•!> 

uf a renovated nation shall be applied to rebuild their prosperity, 
and smooth down the furrows of war. 

[At this point in his oration, Mr. Beecher paused, and said, "I 
will thank the band to play an air, and you to get up that are 
sitting down, and you to sit down that have been standing : and 
I will sit down, too, and rest for a moment." When the band 
had ceased playing, he said : " We will now take our places 
again, and attend to our business," and then pi-oceeded with his 
speaking.] 

Has this long and weary period of strife been an unmingled 
evil ? Has nothing been gained ? Yes, much. This nation has 
attained to its manhood. 

Among Indian customs is one which admits young men to the 
rank of warriors only after severe trials of hunger, fatigue, pain, 
endurance. They reach their station, not through years, but 
ordeals. Our nation has suffered, and now is strong. 

The sentiment of loyalty and patric)tism, next in importance to 
religi'jn. has been rooted and grounded. We have something to 
be proud of, and pride helps love. Never so much as now did we 
love our country. (Great applause.) 

But four such years of education in ideas, in the knowledge of 
political truth, in the lore of history, in the geography of our own 
country, almost every inch of which we have probed with the 
bayonet, have never passed before. There is half a hundred 
years' advance in four. 

We believed in our institutions and principles before ; but now 
we know their power. It is one thing to look upon artillery, and 
be sui'e that it is loaded; it is another thing to receive its dis- 
charge. (Laughter.) We believed in the hidden power stored 
in our institutions; we had never before seen this nation thunder- 
ing like Mount Sinai at all those that worshipped the calf at the 
base of the mountain. 

A people educated and moral are competent to all the exigen- 
cies of national life. A vote can govern better than a crown. 
We have proved it. (Applause.) A people intelligent and reli- 
gious are strong in all economic elements. They are fitted for 
5 



70 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 



peace and competent to war. They are not easily inflamed ; and, 
when justly incensed, not easily extinguished. They ai-e pati- 
ent in adversity, endure cheerfully needful burdens, tax themselves 
for real wants more royally than any prince would dare to tax his 
people. They pour forth, without stint, relief for the sufferings of 
war, and raise charity out of the realm of a dole, into a munificent 
duty of beneficence. 

The habit of industry among free men prepares them to meet 
the exhaustion of war with increase of productiveness commen- 
surate with the need that exists. Their habits of skill enable them 
at once to sup])ly such armies as only freedom can muster, with 
arms and munitions such as only free industry can create. Free 
society is terrible in war, and afterwards repairs the mischief of 
war with a celerity almost as great as that with which the ocean 
heals the seams gashed in it by the keel of the plowing ship. 

Free society is fruitful of military genius. It comes when call- 
ed : when no longer needed, it falls back as waves do to the level 
of the common sea, that no wave may be greater than the undi- 
vided water. With proof of strength so great, yet in its infancy, 
we stand up among the nations of the world asking no privileges, 
asserting no rights, but quietly assuming our place, and determi- 
ned to be second to none in the race of civilization and religion. 

Of all nations, we are the most dangerous and the least to be 
feared. (Laughter and applause.) We need not expound the 
perils that wait upon enemies that assault us. They are sutbcient- 
ly understood ! (Laughter.) But we are not a danger(_)us people 
because we are warlike. All the arrogant attitudes of this 
natitni, so offensive to foreign governments, were inspired by 
slavery, and under the administration of its minions. Our tastes, 
our habits, our interests and our principles, incline us to the arts 
of peace. 

This nation was founded by the common peopk', for the com- 
mon people. We are seeking to embody in j)ublic economy 
more liberty, with higher justice and virtue, than have been 
organized before. By the necessity of oiu' doctrines, we are ])ut 
in sympathy with the masses of men in all nations. It is not our 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 71 

business to subdue nations, but to augment the powers of the 
common people. The vulgar ambition of mere domination, as it 
belongs to universal human nature may tempt us ; but it is with- 
stood by the whole force of our principles, our habits, our prece- 
dents and our legends. 

AVe acknowledge the obligation which our better political prin- 
ciples lay upon us to set an example more temperate, humane 
and just, than monarchical governments can. We will not suifer 
wrong, and still less will w^e inflict it upon other nations. Nor 
are we concerned that so many ignorant of our conflict, for the 
present, misconceive the reasons of our invincible military zeal. 
" Why contend," say they, " for a little territory that you do not 
needl" Because it is ours/ (Laughter and applause.) Because 
it is the interest of every citizen to save it from becoming a for- 
tress and refuge of iniquity. This nation is our house, and our 
fathei's' house ; and accursed be the man who will not defend it to 
the uttermost. (Applause.) More territory than we need 1 
England, that is not large enough to be our pocket, (laughter,) 
may think that it is more than we need ; but we are better judges 
of what we need than they are ! 

Shall a philanthropist say to a banker who defends himself 
against a robber, "Why do you need so much money?" But 
we will not reason with such questions. When any foreign nation 
willingly will divide their territory and give it cheerfully away, 
we will answer the question why we are fighting for territory ! 
(Laughter.) 

At present — for I pass to the consideration of benefits that ac- 
crue to the South in distinction from the rest of the nation — the 
South reaps only suffering ; but good seed lies buried under the 
furrows of war, that peace will bring to harvest. 

1. Deadly doctrines have been purged away in blood. The sub- 
tile poison of secession was a perpetual threat of revolution. 
The sword has ended that danger. That which reason had aflirm- 
ed as a philosophy, the people have settled as a fact. Theory 
pronounces, " There can be no permanent government where each 
integral particle has liberty to fly off." Who would venture upon 



72 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

a voyage on a ship, each plank and timber of which might with- 
draw at its pleasure? (Laughter and applause.) But the people 
have reasoned by the logic of the sword and of the ballot, and 
they have declared that States are inseparable parts of national 
government. They are not sovereign. State rights remain ; 
but sovereignty is a right higher than all others ; and that has 
been made into a common stock for the benefit of all. (Ap- 
plause.) All further agitation is ended. This element must be 
cast out of political problems. Henceforth that poison will 
not rankle in the blood. 

2. Another thing has been learned; the rights and duties- of 
minorities. The people of the whole nation are of more authority 
than the people of any section. These United States are supreme 
over Northern, Western and Southern States. It ought not to 
have required the aw'ful chastisement of this war to teach that a 
minority must submit the control of the nation's government to a 
majority. The army and navy have been good political school- 
masters. (Laughter and applause.) The lesson is learned. Not 
foi- many generations will it require further illustration. 

3. No other lesson will be more fruitful of peace than the dis- 
persion of those conceits of vanity, which, on either side, have 
clouded the recognition of the manly courage of all Americans. 
If it be a sign of manhood to be able to fight, then Americans are 
men. The North, certainly, are in no doubt whatever of the 
soldierly qualities of Southern men. Southern soldiers have 
learned that all latitudes breed courage on this continent. Courage 
is a passport to respect. The people of all the regions of this 
nation are likely hereafter to cherish a generous admiration of 
each other's prowess. The war has bred respect, and respect 
w ill breed afiection, and affection peace and unity. (Applause.) 

4. No other event of the war can fill an intelligent Southern 
man of candid nature with more surprise, than the revelation of 
the capacity, moral and military, of the black race. It is a revela- 
tion indeed. No people were ever less understood by those most 
tiimiliar with them. They were said to be lazy, lying, impudent 
and cowai'dly wretches, drivt n by the whip alone to the tasks 



TKIP OF THE OCEANUS. 73 

needful to theii' (jwn support, and the fuuctioiis of civilization. 
They wei-e said to be dangerous, blood-thirsty, liable to insurrec- 
tion ; but four years of tumultuous distress and war have rolled 
across the area inhabited by them, and I have yet to hear of one 
authentic instance of the misconduct of a colored man. They 
have been patient and gentle and docile, and full of faith and hope 
and piety ; and when summoned to freedom they have emerged 
with ail the signs and tokens that freedom will be to them what 
it was to be — the swaddling band that shall bring them to man- 
hood. And after the Government honoring them as men, sum- 
moned them to the field, when once they were disciplined, and had 
learned the art of war, they have proved themselves to be not 
second to their white brethren in arms. And when the roll of 
men that have shed their blood is called in the other land, many 
and many a dusky fiice will rise, dark no more, when the light of 
eternal glory shall shine upon it from the thixme of God. 

5. The industry of the Southern States is regenerated, and now 
rests upon a basis that never fails to bring prosperity. Just now" 
industry is collapsed ; but it is not dead. It sleepeth. It is vital 
yet. It will spring like mown grass from the roots that need but 
showers and heat, and time to bring them forth. Though in many 
districts not a generation will see wanton wastes of self-invoked 
war repaired, and many portions may lapse again to wilderness j 
yet, in our life-time we shall see States, as a whole, raised to a 
prosperity, vital, wholesome and immovable. 

6. The destruction of class interests, working with a religion, 
which tends towards true democracy in proportion, as it is pure 
and free, will create a new era of prosperity for the common 
laboring people of the South. Upon them has come the labor, 
the toil, and the loss of this war. They have fought blind-folded. 
They have fought for a class that sought their degradation, while 
they were made to believe that it was for their own homes and 
altars. Their leaders meant a supremacy which would not long 
have left them political liberty, save in name. But their leaders 
are swept away. The sword has been hungry for the ruling 
classes. It has soucht them out with remorseless zeal. New 



74 TRIP OF THE OOEANUS. 

men are to rise up ; new ideas are to ])ud and blossom ; and 
there will be men with different ambition and altered policy. 

7. Meanwhile, the South, no longer a land of plantations, but 
of farms; no longer tilled by slaves, but by freedmen, will find no 
hindrance to the spread of education. Schools will multiply. 
Books and papers will spread. Churches will bless every hamlet. 
There is a good day coining for the South. Through darkness, 
and teai-s. and blood she has sought it. It hasl)een an unconscious 
rid (lo/orosa. But, in the end, it will be worth all it has cost. 
Her institutions before were deadly. She nourished death in her 
bosom. The greater her secular pr<^isperity, the more sure was 
her I'uiii. Every year of delay but made the change more teri-i- 
ble. Now, by an earthquake, the evil is shaken down. And her 
own historians, in a better day, shall write that from the day the 
sword cut off the cancer she began to find her health. 

What, then, shall hinder the rebuilding of this republic? The 
evil spirit is cast out : why should not this nation cease to wander 
amoug tombs, cutting itself? Why should it not come, clothed, 
and iu its right mind, to "sit at the feet of Jesus'?" Is it feared 
that the Government will oppress the conquered States ? What 
possible motive has the Government to narrow the base of that 
pyramid on which its own permanence stands? 

Is it feared that the rights of the States will be withheld ? The 
South is not more jealous of their State rights than the North. 
State i-'ghts, from the earliest colonial days, have been the pecu- 
liai- pride and jealousy of New England. In every stage of 
national formation, it was peculiarly Northern, and not Southern, 
statesmen that guarded State rights as we were forming the Con- 
stitution. But, once united, the loyal States give up forever that 
which had been delegated to the National Government. And 
now, in the hour of victory, the loyal States do not mean to 
trench upon Southern States rights. They will not do it, or suffer 
it to be done. There is not to be one rule for high latitudes, and 
anf)ther ff>r low. We take nothing from the Southern States that 
has not already been taken from Northern. The South shall 
have just those rights that every Eastern, every Middle, every 
Western State has — no more, no less. 



TKIP OF THE OOEANUS. (O 

We are not seeking our own aggrandizement by impoverishing 
the South. Its prosperity is an indispensable element of our own. 
We have shown, by all that we have suffered in war, how great 
is our estimate of the importance of the Southern States of this 
Union; and we will measure that estimate, now, in peace, by still 
greater exertions for their rebuilding. 

Will refle(;ting men perceive, then, the wisdom of aecej)ting 
established facts ; and, with alacrity of enterprise, begin to retiieve 
the past? 

Slavery cannot come l)ack. It is the interest, therefore, of 
every man to hasten its end. Do you want more war? Are 
you not yet weary of contest 1 Will you gather up the unex- 
ploded fragments of this prodigious magazine of all mischief, and 
heap them up for continued explosion? Does not the South need 
peace? And, since free labor is inevitable, will you have it in its 
worst forms or its best ? Shall it be ignorant, impertinent, indo- 
lent? or, shall it be educated, self-respecting, moral, and self-sup- 
porting? Will you have men as drudges, or will you have them 
as citizens ? Since they have vindicated the Government, and 
cemented its foundation stones with their blood, may they not 
offer the tribute of their support to maintain its laws and its 
policv ? It is better for religion; it is better for political integri- 
ty ; it is better for industry ; it is better for money — if you will 
have that ground motive — that you should educate the black man; 
and, by education, make him a citizen. (Applause.) Tliey who 
refuse education to a black man, would turn the South into a vast 
poor-house, and labor into a pendulum, necessity vibrating be- 
tween poverty and indolence. 

From this pulpit of broken stone we speak forth our earnest 
greeting to all our land. 

We offer to the President of these United States our solemn 
congratulations that God has sustained his life and health under 
the unparalleled burdens and sufferings of four bloody years, and 
permitted him to behold this auspicious consummation of that 
national unity for which he has waited with so much ]>atience and 
fortitude, and for which he has labored with such disinterested 
wisdom. (Applause.) 



7C TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

To the members of the Government associated with him in the 
administration of perilous affairs in critical times; to the Senators 
and Representatives of the United States who have eagerly fash- 
ioned the instruments by which the popular will might express 
and enforce itself, we tender our grateful thanks. (Applause.) 

To the oflicers and men of the army and navy, who have so 
faithfully, skillfully, and gloriously upheld theii' country's author- 
ity, by suffering, labor, and sublime courage, we offer here a 
tribute beyond the compass of words. (Great applause.) 

Upon those true and faithful citizens, men and women, who 
have borne up with unflinching hope in the darkest hour, and 
covered the land with the labors of love and charity, we invoke 
the divinest blessing of Him whom they have so truly imitated. 
(Applause.) 

But, chiefly to Thee, God of our fathers, we render thanksgiv- 
ing and praise for that wt)ndrous providence that has l)rought 
forth, from such a harvest of war, the seed (jf so much liberty and 
peace. 

We invoke peace upon the North. Peace be to the West. 
Peace be upon the South. 

In the name of God, we lift up our banner, and dedicate it to 
Peace, Union, and Liberty, now and forevermore. Amen. 
(Great applause.) 

At the cunclusiuii of the Address, the vast audience 
rose to their feet, and poured out their hearts in thank- 
fidness, bj singing : 

7. S^Ijc gl(j*-ologg, to tijc him of "^Ib |)unbrcb." 

" Praise God from wliom all blessings tiow ! 
Praise Him all creatures here below ! 
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host ! 
Praise Father, Son and holy Ghost !" 

Never did a loftier enthusiasm ins})ire, and uplift the 
hearts of patriotic men, than wdien the stately, choral 



TRIP OF THE OCEANDS. 77 

measures of tin's sublime ascription rose mi<i;htily, l)cyi)n(l 
the ilag, beyond the stars, to the ear and heart of the 
Lord of Hosts ! 

But the exercise upon so significant and illustrious an 
occasion, would have been incom]>lete, without a devout 
recognition of tliat wisdom which had guided the na- 
tional counsels ; that goodness which had filled the cycle 
of four years past with blessing and progress ; and tluit 
strong "right hand and holy arm," which had "gotten 
us the victory." 

All heads were therefore reverently bowed, and all 
lips resjionded a fervent "x\men," as we joined in heart, 
with 

B. CIjc Closing |pragcr mxtj §cncbiction. 

BY REV. R. S. STORKS, JR., D.D. 

As this prayer was 7'ead, and withal was a rare i)ro- 
duction of appropriateness, comprehensiveness, earnest 
patriotism, lofty faith and fervid eloquence ; it will 
gratity all our readers, to find it exactly transcril;)ed in 
this work. 

We append it here. 

PRAYER. 

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, who wast, and art, and art 
to come, the Eternal Ruler of worlds and men, having Thy glory 
above the heavens, Holy and Reverend is Thy Name. Before 
Thy throne we humbly bow, confessing our sins, and seeking the 
continual aids of Thy grace. Unto Thee we render our joyful 
thanks, that Thou hast been pleased to reveal Thyself to us, 
through Thy Son and Thy Spirit, as ready to hear and answer 
prayer. 



78 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

Thine, oil [jord ! are power and majesty ; glory and victory are 
Tliine. We worship and adore Thee for Thine infinite holiness, 
for Thy wisdom and might, for Thy clemency and goodness, and 
for Thine unsearchable love to mankind. We adore Thee for 
Thine immutable sovereignty, in Providence and in grace; that 
Thou doest Thy pleasure in the armies of Heaven, and dost 
sweetly ordain and irresistibly establish Thy counsel in the earth ; 
and that all Thy works are done in truth. And assembled be- 
foi'e Thee in these public solemnities, on a day, and in a scene, 
C(»nsecrated by memories of sorrow and fidelity, of sacrifice and of 
victory, we give Thee especial thanks for all Thy goodness to us 
as a people; most of all in the blo<jdy and terrible years through 
which of late Thou hast caused us to pass. We thank Thee for 
the leaders whom Thou hast raised up for us, in the Cabinet and 
the Field ; for their wisdom in council, for their religious con- 
secration and trust; for their valor, and skill, and fortitude in war. 
We thank Thee for the successes with which thou hast been 
pleased to crown our arms, on the land and the sea; for the signal 
victories which of late we have gotten, not hy our skill and will 
alone, but by the might of Him, who hath helped us ; and for the 
discomfiture of the plans of our enemies. 

We mourn before Thee, for the thousands who have {alien, our 
beauty and strength, upon our high places. But we bless Thee 
and praise Thee, that their suffei-ing and death have not been in 
vain, and that from their graves, the Nation which they loved hath 
drawn, by Thy grace, a nobler life ; that its unity is maintained ; 
that its revered institutions are preserved ; that the shame and 
curse of oppression are removed from it; that its throne hence- 
forth is estal)lished in righteousness; and that on it there hang 
their memorable names, as a thousand bucklers, all shields of 
mighty men. 

And now, we |>ray Thee, oh ! Lord of Hosts, who was the God 
of our fathers aforetime, and in whose name we have set up our 
banners, that the flag now raised anew above these walls, by the 
hand of Thy servant, may never be lowered before the onset of 
foreign war ; befoi'c the more deadly assault of treason ; that be- 



TRIP OF TPIE OCEANUS. 79 

ing upheld and advanced by Thee, whose coLinsel is iiifiiiito, and 
■whf)se right hand is ghirious in power, it may shine forex ci' on the 
front of our land, the symbol of Christian liberty and law, of peace, 
and hope, and universal well being. 

With Thy merciful favor behold, we beseech Thee, and plen- 
te(»asly bless, Thy servant, the President of these United States, 
and all who are, in any station associated with him, in the conduct 
of the government, the enactment or the administraticjn of law. 
Instruct and direct them by Thy Holy Spirit, and endue them 
with Thy grace; that as mortal, yet immortal, accountable to 
PTistory and responsible to Thee, they may plan with prudence, 
may labor with diligence, may wait with constant hope and faith, 
and may see Thy work always prospering in their hand. 

Bless those who are at the head of our armies and na\i('s, and 
those in every rank of command. Make them to be sti'ong and of 
a good courage ; ride upon the heavens in their help, () most 
High ; shelter their heads in the day of battle ; make them 
merciful and humane, as well as valiant and wise, and preserve 
them hereafter, as Thou hast hitherto, from undue exultation in 
the hour of victory. 

Bless those \vho serve, with fliithful hearts, in whatever place, in 
our armies and navies. Teach their hands to war, and their 
fingers to fight, yet let them ever be mindful of Thee, and may 
they live to receive the reward of all their perils in the gratitude 
of their coiuitry, and in Thy smile. 

Remember those who are sick and wounded, in camp and 
hospital, and those who are prisoners afar from home. Grant 
them speedy healing, and quick release ; and may they have 
succor in their feebleness and pain, and solace and society in their 
solitude and want, through Thy benediction. 

Remember those who have been our enemies, and turn their 
hearts from wrath and war, to love and peace. Let the desola- 
tions that have come on them suffice, and unite them with us in 
ties of a better brotherhood than of old ; that the cities, and homes, 
and happiness they have lost may be more than rephiced in the 
long prosperity they shall hereafter know\ 



so TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

Grant Thy Fathei'ly blessing unto all this nation, founded in 
faith, devoted to Thee in its early baptism of fire and blood, and 
now again signally saved by Thy hand. Thou has given to it the 
precious fruits brought forth l)y the sun, and the precious things 
put forth by the moon, the chief things of the ancient mountains, 
and the precious things of the lasting hills. May the goodwill of 
Him that dwelt in the bush, be also its inheritance, and let Thy 
blessing come upon its head ; that being not only restored but re- 
newed, being purified in its spirit and perfected for Thy sei'vice, 
by the sorrows and the wonders through which it hath been led, it 
maybe a nation forevermore to Thine honor and praise; the 
kingdom of Thy favor, the people and the nation of Thy right 
hand. So hasten through it the coming of the day, when all the 
kingdoms shall be at last the kingdoms of Thy Son, and when the 
kindreds and tribes of the earth, knit together in love, shall learn 
and practice war no more. 

And now, O God, our Heavenly Father, help us who are here 
assembled before Thee, and who never again shall be here 
assembled before Thee, and who never again shall be so as- 
sembled, until we stand before Thy bar to consecrate ourselves 
afresh, on this historic day to the welfare of our land; to the 
cause, and the cross, and the truth of our Lord; that we may live 
evermore to Thy glory, may walk in Thy light, may die at last in 
thy perfect peace, and may arise to our rest in the bosom of Thy 
love. 

We oifer all these our praises and thanksgivings, and ask all 
these inestimable gifts, only in His most worthy name, who loved 
us, and sought us, and gave Himself for us, even unto the bitter 
death upon the Cross, and unto whom, with Thee, () Father! and 
the Holy Ghost, shall be honor and praise, and dominion and 
power, henceforth and forever, world without end. Amen. 

The prayer being ended with the Benediction, the 
grand ceremonial, which must ever live upon the annals 
of our country's history was concluded. But for a while 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 81 

the assemblage seemed riveted to the spot. During 
certain portions of the ceremony, a strange absence of 
demonstrative enthusiasm had been observed. Once^ 
when the flag went up, it was irrepressible, tumultuous 
and overmastering. At other times, it was oidy mode- 
rate, and seemed inadequate to the suggestions and de- 
mands of the occasion. No other solution can be given 
of this, than the natural difficulty in expressing en- 
thusiasm according to a programme ; or that the feeling 
of the participants was too deep, and pervasive and 
solemn, for noisy demonstration. 

But at the close of the services, once more it broke 
forth, and a vigorous " tioice three^^'' was given for the 
old flag, three more for Gen. Anderson, as many for 
President Lincoln, another round for Gen. Gilmore, Mr. 
Beecher, and other celebrities; and the historic scene 
was over; the power of the United States over the 
waters of Charleston Harbor, and the soil of South Car- 
olina, was vindicated ; and the banner of the Republic, 
soon to be restored, was left floating at the peak, never 
to be displaced again by rebellious hands, while the 
names of Washington and Lincoln lingei' in the memory 
of mankind. 

The crowd now slowly dispersed about the fort, sur- 
veying the surrounding scenery from the parapet, ex- 
ploring the casemates and bomb-proofs where many of 
the larffe 2;uns still remain ; ruma2;ino; amidst the debris 
for relics, unearthing great pieces of shell oi' canister 
shot, rusty bits of iron, bolts and screws which they 



82 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

carried about until weary, and then threw away, for 
some less ponderous souvenii"; plucking leaves and 
Howoi's from the speakers' stand, indnlging in general 
hand shaking with the military celebrities upon the 
platform, recognizing old acquaintances, and waiting for 
the steanil)oats and transports to come up to the dock, 
that they might reend)ark for the city. 

Meanwhile the " Planter,"'' whose load of contrabands, 
for some as yet unexjdained reason, had not been per- 
mitted to land and witness the ceremonies within the 
fort, liad been left aground at the landing, by the fall- 
ing tide. No effort of her own could set her afloat. 
JVFuch confusion and delay ensued. The passengers of 
the " (Jceanus,'' were compelled to cross the decks of the 
^' Planter," the ''Delaware," and the ''Robert Coit," to 
reach the " Golden Gate." 

In passing from the " Planter" to the " Delaware," the 
crowd became very dense and impatient. The bow 
of the former lay hard against the side of tlie latter. 
It was necessary to step from the up])er deck of 
the one, which converged to a point, upon the deck of 
the other. A part of the railing of the "Planter," was 
l)roken away at the right, and nothing was between 
the crowding men and women, and the water below, 
except the high ujjper deck ui)on which we stood. 
Those behind ])ressed hard upon those in advance. 
Warning voices were heard saying that the weak deck 
would give away. Many were crowded to the very 
verge. There was real danger of some being pushed 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 83 

into the water. One by one. and very slowly at that, 
the people were handed over the narrow ]>ass. And 
we record these circumstances thus minutely, because it 
was regarded as a noteworthy Providence, that not the 
slightest accident betel any person, who made the 
transit. Furthermore it may be added, that no casualty 
whatever occurred throughout the entire day, to mar 
the enjoyment and harmony of the occasion. 

The living freight, at last being duly shijiped, the 
" Golden (-rate" and the " Delaware," now attaclied their 
cables to the " Planter," and drew her from her moorings 
of mud. Once detached, she seemed irresistible. Her 
strono; wheels conducted themselves as though desirous 
of being avenged for their temporary disgrace. Robert 
Small again stood on the top of the wheelhouse, and 
shouted his commands. A little less zeal and more dis- 
cretion on the part of this colored captain, would have 
prevented a momentary fright for our ladies. For, fail- 
ing to give the signal for reversing in time, he allowed 
his dun-colored craft to come crashing into our port 
wheel-house, making both the splinters and the color 
fly. However, no serious chimage was done by the col- 
ision. The " Planter" with its motley crew, and a few of 
our own party who had failed to reach the " Golden 
Gate," anu)ng whom we noticed our Honorable Mayor 
of Brooklyn, slowly wheeled, and then gallantly led the 
van of all the vessels, on the return to the city of 
Charleston. 

After sundry mysterious backings and circuits of our 



84 TRIP OF THE 0CEANU8. 

own craft around the fort, at lengtli she turned her bow 
towards the spires of the city, and soon we wer6 once 
more on board the " Oceanus,''' partaking- of an excellent 
supper, for which long fasting had given the keenest 
relish. 

As the sun went down over the waters of the western 
sea, tlie eclioes which had slumbered since the salute 
to the risen flag, were again awakened by the thunder 
of cannon from all the shipping. 

In the evening, at 8 o'clock, we were sunnnoned to 
the decks, to witness a most unique and beautiful illu- 
mination, as the closing demonstration of the day. At 
a given signal from the flag-shi]), every man-of-war? 
transport and monitor iii the harbor, became a skeleton 
jiyramid of flame. Lanterns thickly slung to the rig- 
ging and culminating at the top of the mainmast, 
flashed out a starry light or line of lights, reduplicated 
by reflection in the water, while on the decks the nu)st 
brilliant Gregorian flres of red, white, blue, green, pink, 
purple and gold, were lighted, whose columns of smoke, 
rolling lazily upward and illuminated res])ectively by 
their own peculiar flame, presented a spectacle of almost 
dazzling beauty. Rockets of great power and towering 
flight, screamed skyward from every deck, and bursting 
witli a muffled sound, dissolved into various gorgeous 
tints, dro})ped gently downward, and quenched their 
splendor in the tide. 

Hark ! the l)ooni of a single gun fr'om the flag-ship. 
Presto! chauire! In a moment the lights are extin- 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 85 

guislied, the lanterns run down, tlie rockets, blue lights, 
and Gregorian fires have ceased their pyrotechnics, and 
again silence and darkness lap their wings over the 
waters of the Bay. 

Thus ended the celebration of April 14th, 1865, the 
day of the flag's resurrection, the day of swelling pa- 
triotic joy for all the leal and loyal ; the day for which 
the North has pra)'ed, fonght, bled and suifered ; the 
day which admonishes all the nations ; the day 
which i^osterity will celebrate, and for which they will 
ever give glory to Almighty God. 

We find in the correspondence of the "Tribune," 
from the pen of Mr. A. M. Powell, the following brief 
notice of the reception at Gen. Hatch's headquarters in 
the evening. 

" In the evening. Gen. Hatch gave a ball, which was 
largely attended, at the former palatial residence of Col. 
Ash. It was just four years previous that Col. Ash 
himself gave a grand ball at the same place, in honor 
of the fall of Sumter. Some of those in attendance as 
waiters npon the ball given by Gen. Hatcli, now free 
men and women, were at the ball four years previous 
as the slaves of Col. Ash. Their connnents, in contrast- 
ing the people assembled upon the two occasions, were 
highly favorable to those at the North, especially the 
northern ladies." 

Many of the passengers, not in attendance upon the 

ball, were deeply interested in the narrations of Capt. 

Robert Small, who paid a visit to our steamer, during 

6 



86 TRIP OP THE OCEANUS. 

the eveniiio-. He is a stoutl.y built man, of little more 
than medium height, of intelligent countenance, ready 
s])eech, entire self-possession, and considerable humor. 
He descril)ed minutely his experience four years ago; 
as his plans were delayed and thwarted by the coward- 
ice of his associates, as at length he resolved to succeed 
or die in the attempt, as he cut the moorings of his 
vessel, and lowered thein by strings into the water, that 
no splash might awaken the sentry ; as he moved slowly 
along the river, and took on board his own wife and chil- 
dren, with those of his companions ; as he guided the 
steamer through the vessels in the harbor, to the w\alls of 
Fort Sumter, at ■^> o'clock in the morning, receiving there 
no notice ; as weary of waiting, at length he steamed, 
with many a narrow escape from detection, past all the 
rebel batteries, and at last delivered his vessel, and all 
on board, to the IT. S. l)lockading ileet, outside of the 
bar. 

For more than an hour he subniitted to the most 
rigid catechising, by the curious passengers, answering 
every question with surprising intelligence, and fre- 
cjuently with genuine Avit of repartee. 

He has the least possible faith in the loyalty of Gov. 
Aiken, or any of those who are returning to take the 
oath of allegiance. The Government estimated the value of 
the "Planter'' at $9,000, of which he received one half 
He is now in independent circumstances, and is re- 
garded by all the other negroes as immensely rich, and 
decidedlv " the smartest culhul man in Souf Oar'limi." 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 87 

At ail unexpectedly early hour, some of the guests of 
General Hatch returned to the boat. Upon being asked 
the reason, they replied that their hearts were not there, 
" that they had been disturbed throughout the evening, 
by certain strange presentiments and foreshado wings of 
evil." 

How little reeked they of that cloud of cimmerian 
darkness, in whicli a more northern sun had but just 
gone down ; of the scene transpiring in the nation's 
Capital, at the very hour when the buoyant ones in the 
saloons of Rebel chiefs, were " chasing the glowing 
hours with flying feet?" 

But we would not lift the curtain a moment too soon. 

The wearied dancers returned to the steamer, at the 
spectral hours; the lights burned low; the cabins were 
still ; and all, in " sleep's serene oblivion," were waiting 
for the morrow. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

It had heon announced that the "(^)ceanns" -wonld sail 
Saturday morning, at 10 o'clock, but a universal desire 
to see more of the city, and attend the " Freedmen's 
meeting," at Zion's Church, secured a postponement of 
the hour to 5 o'clock p. m., preciseh'. The day was 
therefore at the disposal of the company. 

Glad of this extension of time, they were scattered, 
after Itreakfjist, in every direction about the city, to 
tinish their explorations. A few, whose tastes led them 
in that direction, went up to the mansion of Gov. 
Aiken, which notorious individual they found quite lios- 
])itable and communicative. As it would be impossible 
to describe all that was seen by our curious party of 
two hundred, we shall give the results of our own ex- 
]>]orations, and the additional matter which has been 
kindly transmitted for our use in this volume. 

Entering first the old " State Bank of South Carolina," 
we found it utterly ruined by iire, and the efiect of 
shells. The rooms were wholly denuded ; the charred 
rafters and slee]iers everywhere protruding ; the tloors 
strewed with bank pa])ers of every description, half 
burned and covered with dust and cinders. A glance 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 89 

at one room was sufficient, for all were in like con- 
dition. The Bank of Charleston, which we next visited, 
is much less injured and ravaged. Originally it was a 
mncli finer structure. 

The marble-topped desks and counters remain, and are 
occupied by our officers, who make the bank a business 
de})ot. A gentlemanly official, lighting a candle, con- 
ducted our party into the vault, a room about 10 by 15 
feet, lined on three sides, with pigeon holes, and car- 
peted now with worthless paper rubbish. The " Direc- 
tor's Room," handsomely frescoed and furnished, was 
in the possession of a U. S. officer. The rooms upon 
the second floor, were piled knee-deep with old bank 
accounts, notes, bills of exchange, papers of every des- 
cription, and of the least possible intrinsic value. Here 
the mania for " relics" ran high. Dozens of curiosity- 
hunters were bending over them on hands and knees, 
untying old yellow and dusty bundles, selecting ancieut 
and curious documents, and duly bestowing them in 
the voluminous depths of coat pockets, or carrying them 
ofi" tenderly under the arm. Occasionally could be 
heard, " ah ! here's a prize ! only look ! 1730, 1776," etc. 

Enough of these valuable acquisitions were brought 
home to comfortably stock "• No. 25 Ann St." 

The old City Hall we found to be the rendezvous 
of the regiments which are now on guard in the city_ 
Muskets were stacked before it and within it ; patrols 
walked measuredly back and forth, while the "boys" 
off duty were asleep upon the benches and floors 



90 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

within. This hnilding was in tlie same general con- 
dition uf those before described, everything indicating 
that the Rebels went out in haste and bv flight. 

Precisely the same may be said of tiie Conrt-Honse. 
on tlie opposite corner of the street, never an imposing 
building, and now sacked, gloomy and desolate. 

Upon the corner diagonally from the City Plall, 
stands the Gnard-Honse, before which negro sentinels 
were pacing, with bayonets tixed. Entering here we 
found a number of contrabands in the large lower room, 
and boys of every size, with a few middle-aged men, 
all exceedingly ragged, but apparently very liap})y. In 
one corner, two youngsters were shuffling a pack of 
dirty cards. Mr. Wm. B. Bradl)ury, asked them, as they 
gathered curiously around, to sing sonje of their regular 
old plantation songs — or the melodies which they use in 
their "quarters.'" Accordingly tliey went through with 
several of their strange, hum-drum, droning airs, ring- 
ing the changes upon particular words or phrases, vary- 
ing tlie melody by only three or four notes, and pro- 
ducing a very wierd effect. Sometimes they ended 
these monotonous chantings with a " shout," or accom- 
panied them with a "break-down" dance. As they 
sang, Mr. Bradbury took down hurriedly the notes upon 
a slip of paper, and may hereafter give tlieni greater 
publicity, as a curiosity of plantation melody. 
One of the b3^standers said : 
"Boys do you know the John Brown song?" 
"Oh! yas, Massa, we know John Brown!" 



TEir OF THE OCEAN Ua. 91 

" Well, give it to us now !'' 
Then the_y broke fortli : 

" John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the grave, etc. 
But his soul am marching home." 

" Do you know the second verse, boys V' 

" Yas ! yas ! we know de second verse too" — and they 

sang, 

"We'll hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree ! 
We'll hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree ! 
We'll hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree ! 
On Canaan's happy shore!" 

So simple and ludicrous, is the admixture of ideas in 
the minds of these nntutored Africans ! In their iruilt- 
less ignorance, they see no reason why " Canaan's 
happy shore,'' may not be an excellent place for an ex- 
ecution. And upon the principle of aggravation, why 
might it not, w^ere it possible ! Why might not the 
the most conscienceless and deepest dyed criminal which 
the nineteenth century has produced, fitly be hanged, 
where his last glance beyond the lightning hempen cord 
might be, at the " sweet fields dressed in livirjg green," 
the "tree of everlasting life," the "golden streets," and 
the blissful choirs of the heavenly country, from which 
his towering and unrepented wickedness have forever 
debarred him ^ Underlying the thonglitless utterance 
of the manumitted slave, may lie found some true 
philosophy. 

Many of these simple-hearted, yet natively religious 
black men, having never heard the " Yankees" men- 
tioned by their masters, exce])t coupled with a ])rofane 



92 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

prefix, have been praying for years witli the most 
unctuous fervor, " O Lord ! bress, we beseech Tliee, and 
speedily bring along de coniin' of de " dam Yankees." 

And the Lord has heard them. Now the beings so 
long oppressed and degraded, seem to be living in the 
single idea that they are free. That thought has pos- 
sessed them night and day, year after year, and now 
that freedom has come, can any wonder that it is dif- 
ficult for them to realize it, and rise, at once, to the 
full understanding, not only of the ])rivileges which it con- 
fers, but of the duties which it makes imperative ''. Their 
faith in their coming deliverance, haa never wavered. 
One old colored exhorter, thus expressed it : "I know 
dat we was to be free, dat the day would come, when 
de Lord willed it, and I pray for it. I wait wid 
patience, for I know when de Lord's time did come, he 
would raise up a man, as he raised Moses, to deliber 
de people." 

It has been asserted that the slaves were treated with 
so much kindness, that they would bo unwilling to leave 
their masters for freedom. 

A touching incident was related, which bears upon 
this point and may undoubtedly be accepted as re- 
])reseutatives of almost the entire class. 

A master was expressing surprise to his slave, a man 
of middle age, that he should be willing to leave him, 
'' Have I not always treated you well, fed, clothed and 
cared for you. Do you really want to be free, and 
your own master !" 



TRIP OF THE 0CEANU8. 93 

'' Oh mas'r," replied the slave, " if you could only 
liab seen my knees for dese last sebeii years, how I'se 
prayed and prayed for freedom, you neber ax dat 
question." 

All the streets along which we ])assed were alive with 
negroes, men, women, boys and girls, from the line 
looking octoroons and whiter damsels, from fourteen 
to twenty years of age, dressed in clean, well-starched 
gowns of calico, and bonnets of modern style, to the 
elder women with fancy turbans ; from the little ragged, 
sooty " piccaninnies," rolling in the sand, or playing on 
the sidewalk, to the decrepit, grey-headed old men, sit- 
ting doubled up on the curb-stone or steps of the stores, 
all watching eagerly the new crowd of passers l)y. The 
amount of " shinplasters," given to these people, by tiie 
passengers of the "Oceanus," cannot ever be conjectured, 
but it was a matter of devout desire, that evening, that 
the steamer would sail at once, lest a day or two 
longer in the city, would leave our company with fear- 
fully gaunt portmonaies. Five of the slaves of Gov. 
Aiken, were huddled in a doorway — a father and moth- 
er, with three children — and five more ignorant, bedrag- 
gled and wretched creatures, it would be difficult to find. 

One good-looking, intelligent negress, ran after us as 
we passed, and touching our companion upon the arm, 
exclamed : 

"Oh! ain't you Mr. Ames, sir?" 

Our good-natured fellow passenger, blandly ignored 
any title to that brief patronymic. 



94 TRIP OF thp: oceanus. 

•' I thought it iimst be, you look so much like dat 
genuiian.'*' 

We fell into (30iiversation with her. 

"■ Aunty," said we, you are free !'' 

"Oh sar,'' she cried, striking her hands frequently 
together, " free as de birds of de air, bress de Lord !'' 

" Well," we responded, you won't call any num 
' massa,' again, will you?" 

Oh, ]Vo mh, no sah ! It doesn't seem as if 1 eo uJd 
make up my mouf to say ' massa,' again to any man." 

"■ A.unty, how old are you !" 

" Don't know precisely, sah ! 'spect I'm nearly lifty 
years old." 

''How many children have you f 

" I've had thirteen, sah ! my first child was l)orn 
when I was fourteen years old." 

" Have you a husband !" 

"Yes, sah! dar^s my ole man," pointing to a hale 
and lieart_y negro, sitting upon the door-stone, a few 
steps off. " Come along here, John, w^ant to 'duce ye 
to dese yer Northern gemman !" And John came up, 
with grinning visage, and rolling gait, and submitted 
to the operation of '■^ ducing ^'' which being accomplished, 
he modestly retired, and left the collorxuy to his mure 
communicative, if not better half. 

We passed on towards the citadel and common. On 
every block were marks of ruin and desertion still. A 
very few stores were open, with the most meagre stock 
of the simplest articles, and a lamentaUe paucity of 



TRIP OF THE OOEANUS. 95 

purchasers. But the most of tlie stores were abandoned, 
the shells havhig- made them untenable. The signs re- 
main, and many a familiar name and firm were re- 
cognized. One gentlemen of our party, standing at 
the crossing of the streets, ])ointed out to us the 
signs oi eleven firms "which" said he "owe us money 
in sums from one thousand to eleven thousand dol- 
lars " — Another gentleman looking obliquely down 
Broad street, exclaimed " Ah, tliere's a tirm that owes 
me over a thousand dollars !" 

The slave-mart attracted much attention — the veri- 
table pens in which families were kept, and at the 
auction block, separated forevei-. The day uf tratfic 
in human tlesh is past — the dreadful marts are closed, 
and the wail of their agonized victims will never 
more be heard in the streets of Charleston. 

We were shown also the jail, with its dark dun- 
geons and instruments of torture for refractory slaves ! 
another obsolete institution in the city, and destined 
to become so throughout every State of the free 
Republic. 

Pausing here for a few moments in this narration, 
we turn to speak of the great meetings held on 
" Citadel Square " and in " Zion's Church." At an early 
hour the colored people had began to assemble about 
the stands erected for the speakers. The colored pub- 
lic school children met at the school houses and 
marched in procession, led by Superintendent Redpath, 
to the square. 



96 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS, 

AVliilo wiiiting for the speakers to arrive, Major 
Delaiiey, (colored,) of (jeiieral Saxton's statf, made an 
address to the crowd. 

g^rribal of Wim. ^lonb Harrison. 

Just before 10 o'clock, the surging and cheering of 
the vast throng announced the arrival of Mr. Garrison. 
It was impossible to repress the enthusiasm of that 
crowd of freemen. Not content with deafening shouts, 
they pressed towards their illustrious friend, and bore 
him on their shoulders to the speaker's stand. At 
sight of this demonstration, Major Delaney remarked 
that '' this day should be the resurrection of John C 
Calhoun." 

A single incident related by one of our passengers, 
Mr. J. L. Leonard, of Lowville, N. Y., will illustrate 
the interest which absorbed the freedmen, as these 
scenes were being enacted. He says : 

" You remember that the Citadel Square was tilled 
with colored people on the 15tli of April, and the 
children, hundreds in uuml)er, from the colored 
schools, were marching in procession, singing " John 
Brown "' and other songs. As I passed through the 
crowd, I saw an old negro, who must have been 
over seventy years of age, sitting on the low wall, 
and noticing tliat he had a wooden leg, I went up 
and inquired of him iiow he lost his leg. He at- 
tempted to answer, but was too much absorbed in 
the spectacle before him to reply, and as the tears 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 97 

rolled down Ids face, he exclaimed ' My (lod ! Mj 
God ! what a sig-ht !' ' Peace ! Peace !' and then 
hearing the report of a tire-arm, he started up in 
alarm, asking, ' What's that 1' his thoughts evidentl_y 
going hack to former days. He immediately turned 
his attention again to the children, and w^as so com- 
pletely overcome that it was some time hefore he 
conld reply to my cpiestion. Tlie intense interest 
manifested by this poor old man made a strong im- 
pression upon me, and I have often thought of it 
since as an illustration of the peculiar emotional na- 
ture of that race, of which I had often heard, but 
which I had never before witnessed.'' 

As it was not possible for Senator Wilson to speak 
in the open air, an adjournment was innnediately 
made to Zion's Church. It is estimated that 3,000 
freedmen crowded themselves within its walls. 

Upon the platform were to be seen the Hon. 
Plenry Wilson, William Lloyd Garrison, George 
Thompson, General Saxton, Tlieodore Tilton, Judge 
Kelly, of Penn., Dr. J. Leavitt, and others. In front 
of the platform was a large number of army and 
navy officers, and visitors, including several ladies. 

When all were seated, a freedman, named Samuel 

Dickerson, accompanied by his two daughters, hearing 

a beautiful wreath of flowers, advanced to the ])ulpit, 

and addressing Mr. Garrison, said : 

Sir — It is with pleasure that is inexpressible tliat I welcome 
you here among us, the long, the steadfast friend of tlie poor, down- 



98 TKIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

trodden slave. Sir, I have read of you. I have read of the 
mighty labors you have had for the consummation of this glori- 
t)us object. Here you see stand before you your handiwork. 
These children were robl)ed from me, and I stood desolate. 
Many a night I pressed a sleepless pillow from the time 1 re- 
turned to my couch until the close of the morning. I lost a dear 
wife, and after her death that little one, who is the counterpart 
of her mother's countenance, was taken from nie. I appealed 
foi- her with all the love and reason of a father. The rejection 
came forth in these words : " Annoy me not, or I will sell theui 
off to another State." I thank God that through your instrumen- 
tality, under the folds of that glorious flag wliich treason tried 
to triumph, you have restored them to me. And I tell you it is 
not this heart alone, but there are mothers, there are fathers, 
there are sisters, and there are brothers, the pulsation of whose 
hearts are unimaginable. The greeting that they would give you, 
Sir, it is almost impossible for me to express; but simply. Sir, 
we welcome and look upon you as our saviour. We thank you 
for what you have done for us. Take this wreath from these 
children, and when you go home, never mind how faded they 
may be, preserve them, encase them, and keep them as a token 
of affection from one who has loved and lived. (Cheers.) 

Mr. Garrison, in reply, spoke as follows : 
My Dear Friend — I have no language to express the feelings 
of my heart on listening to your kind and strengthening words, 
on receiving these beautiful tokens of your gratitude, and on look- 
ing into the faces of this vast multitude, now happily liberated 
from the galling fetters of slavery. Let me say at the outset : 
" Not unto us, not unto us, but unto God be all the glory" for 
^vhat has been done in regard to your emancipation. I have been 
actually engaged in this work for almost forty years — for I began 
when 1 was quite young to plead the cause of the enslaved in this 
country. But I never expected to look you in the flice, never sup- 
posed you would hear of anything I might do in your behalf I 
knew only one thing — all that I wanted to know — that you were a 
grievously oppressed people ; and that, on every considei-ation of 



TRIP OV THE OCEANUS. 99 

justice, humanity, and right, you were entitled to immediate and 
unconditional freedom. 

I hate slavery as I hate nothing else in this world. It is not 
only a crime, but the sum of all criminality ; not only a sin, but 
the sin of sins against Almighty God. I cannot be at peace with 
it at any time, to any extent, under any circumstances. That I 
have been permitted to witness its overthrow calls for expressions 
of devout thanksgiving to heaven. It was not on account of your 
complexion or race, as a people, that I espoused your cause, but 
because you were the children of a common Father, created in 
the same divine image, having the same inalienable rights, and as 
much entitled to liberty as the proudest slaveholder that ever 
walked the earth. 

For many a year I have been an outlaw at the South for your 
sakes, and a large price was set upon my head, simply because I 
endeavored to remember those in bonds as bound with them. 
Yes — God is my witness ! — I have faithfully tried, in the face of 
the fiercest opposition, and under the most depressing circumstan- 
ces, to make your cause my cause; my wife and children your 
wives and children, subjected to the same outrage and degrada- 
tion ; myself on the same auction-block, to be sold to the highest 
bidder. Thank God, this day you are free! (Great cheering.) 
And be resolved that, once free, you will be free forever. No — 
not one of you ever will, ever can consent again to become a 
bondman. Liberty or death, but never slaveiy. (Cheers.) 

It gives me joy to assure you, that the American Government 
will stand by you to establish your freedom against whatever 
claims your former masters may bring. The time was when it 
gave no protection, but was on the side of the oppressor, where 
there was power. Now all is changed ! Once, I could not feel 
any gladness at the sight of the American flag, because it was 
stained with your blood, and under it four millions of slaves were 
daily driven to unrequited labor. Now, it floats, purged of its 
gory stain ; it symbolizes freedom for all, without distinction of 
race or color. The Government has its hold upon the throat of 
the monster Slavery, and is strangling the life out of it. 



100 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

Ill conclusion, I thank you, my friend, for your aftecting and 
grateful addi'ess, and for these handsome tokens of our Heavenly 
Father's wisdom and goodness, and will try t(j preserve them in 
accordance with your wishes. O, be assured, I never doubted that 
I had the gratitude and affection of the entire colored population 
of the United States, even though personally unknown to so 
many of them ; because I knew that upon me heavily rested the 
wrath and hatred of your cruel oppressors. I was sure, therefore, 
if I had them against me, I had you with me. (Applause.) But, 
as it is now time to organize this meeting, it will not be proper 
for me to go on with these remarks any fuither, except to say 
that, long as I have labored in your behalf, while God gives me 
reason and strength I shall demand lor you everything I claim for 
the whitest of the white in this country. (Great cheering.) 

Major General Saxton rose to introduce Senator Wil- 
son, and was greeted witli tliree clieers. Clen. Saxton 

said : 

My Friends — I did not want you to cheer for me to- 
day. There are soldiers in your cause here whose hats I 
am not worthy to hold, for they have been a great while in 
it. It is my happiness to-day to introduce to you an honored 
Senator from a nol)le State ; my own loved native State, Massa- 
chusetts ; one who through a long, able, consistent and brilliant 
career in the councils of the nation, has fought and borne his testi- 
mony against the living wickedness of human slavery ; and when, 
in the future of your emancipated, regenerate and regenerating 
race, you shall read the record of its downfall, on the pages of its 
history shall shine brightly the name of Henry Wilson, of Massa- 
chusetts. (Cheers.) 

Mr. Garrison — 1 wish to add one word more. 1 am delighted 
to find so strong a representation from Massachusetts in South 
Carolina. Of all the States in tlie Union, it is to her credit that 
she has always been the most hated and feared by the slavehold- 
ing South, for her anti-slavery spirit and tendencies. Senator 
Wilson has ably and faithfully sustained her reputation, in this 
particular, in Congress, for sevei-al years past ; and for a much 



TRIP OF THE OCEANDS. 101 

longer period has heon your fearless friend and advocate. In the 
days of its deepest darkness and greatest perils, he unflinchingly 
supported your cause, which has been greatly advanced by his 
example and testimony. Tlis life" (as well as Mr. Sunnier's) has 
been continually imperilled in the national capital ; so that, from 
session to session, it has been uncertain whether he would ever be 
permitted to see his family and constituents again. He has 
fought a good fight, and deserves to be crowned with laurels. 
lie began his career as a humble mechanic — one of the " mud sills," 
of whom some of you may perhaps have heard. He has, by his 
own merits, worked his way up to almost the highest station in 
the land, and is now one of the most esteemed and justly honored 
of our public men. Join with me in exclaiming, God bless 
Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts ! (Cheers.) 

Senator Wilson rose amid cheering, and after it luid sub- 
sided said : 

Men, Women and Freedmen of Charleston, and of South 
Carolina, and of the United States — This is the proudest day 
of my life. To stand here on the soil of South Carolina, in the 
home of the rebellion, on the platform with the great anti-slavery 
hero of our country, William Lloyd Garrison, and before the 
freedmen of the city of Charleston ! (Great cheering.) For 
twenty-nine years in private life and in public life, at all times 
and on all occasions, I have spoken against slavery, voted against 
slavery, and in favor of the freedom of every man that breathes 
God's air or walks his earth. And to-day, standing here in South 
Carolina, I feel that the slave power we have fouglit so long is 
under my heel ; (cheers) — and that men and women held in 
bondage for so long are fi"ee forevermore. You have no masters 
now. (Cheers.) You know no master but Almighty God. 
(Cheers.) Slave is no more written on your foreheads. Allow 
no man hereafter to call you a slave. Spread it abroad all over 
South Carolina, that the black men of South Carolina know no 
master now, and that tliey are slaves no more forever. (Great 
cheering.) Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, 
7 



102 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

(tremenddiis clicei-ing and waving of hats, etc.) with twenty-five 
niillions of freemen by his side, and seven hnndred thousand 
bayonets behind him, has decreed it, and it will stand while the 
world stands, that the men and women of South Carolina can 
never more be slaves. They have robbed your cradles ; they 
have sold your children ; they have separated husband and wife, 
father and mother and child. (Cries of yes ! yes! yes!) They 
shall separate you no more. (Hallelujah ! Bless the Lord !) Let 
them understand it. Here to-day I proclaim it. I want the 
proud and haughty chivalry of South Carolina, whom I have met 
in the Congress of the United States to know it ; I want them one 
and all tt) hear me to-day, and understand what I say, that the 
black men and the black women of South Carolina are as free as 
they are ; and further, that they are loyal to the flag of the coun- 
try, while they are false and ti-aitorous. (Cheers.) Let them 
understand, too, that we, the people of the United States, and the 
Government of the United States, have more respect for a loyal 
black man than for a South Carolina white traitoi*. 

Now I want you to understand these things. I want you to 
walk the soil of South Carolina with your foreheads t(_) the skies, 
proud and erect, conscious that you are freemen, and that }'ou owe 
your obligations, not to the master of the palace, but to the low- 
est of your nation, and to the God of heaven. (Cheers.) 

And now, understanding that being your position, a position in 
which you are placed by the Government of the United States, a 
position in which you will be backed by the bayonets of the Gov- 
ernment of the United States, if it ever be necessary to maintain 
your freedom — standing in this position, forever free, you and 
thousands who come after you, remember, oh, remember, the 
sacrifices that have been made for your freedom, and be worthy 
of the freedom that has come to you ! (Cheers.) I know you 
will be. 

Through these four years of bloody war, you have been always 
loyal to the old flag of the country. You have never betrayed 
your country; you have never betrayed the Union soldiei's fight- 
ing the battles of the counti'v. You have guided them, you have 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 103 

cheerer] thoin, you have prt)tectod tliem all thi'ough the counti-y, 
and you have proved yourselves worthy the great occasion in 
which you are placed by the slaveholders' rebellion. You saw, 
four years ago, the flag of your country struck down from Sum- 
ter — yesterday you saw the old flag go up again. All its stars 
gleam now witli a brighter lustre. You know now what the old 
flag ini'ans ; that it means liberty to evei-y man and woman in the 
country. (Cheers.) 

You have been patient, you have endured, you have trusted in 
God for your liberties, and in your country ; and the God of our 
fathers has blessed our country, and blessed yon ; and now you 
are here, the country is saved, the great army that carried the 
arms of this rebellion has surrendered to Gen. Grant. (Great 
cheers.) The long, dreary and chilly night of slavery has passed 
away forevermore. (Amen, Amen, Amen.) and the star of 
liberty casts its broad beams upon you to-day. Now your duties 
commence with your liberties. Remember that you are to be 
obedient, faithful, true, and loyal to the country forevermore. 
(Cheers and cries of yes! yes! yes!) Remember, too, that you 
are to educate your children ; that you are to improve their con- 
dition ; that you are to make a brighter future to them than the 
past has been to you. Remember that you are to be industi-i- 
ous ; that freedom does not mean that you must not work, but it 
means that when you do work, you shall have pay for it to carry 
home to your wives, and the children of your love. Remember 
that liberty means the liberty to work for yourselves, to have the 
fruits of it to better your own condition, and improve the condi- 
tion of your children. Respect yourselves. Feel and go about 
on earth conscious that you are freemen. Walk like freemen. 
Bow and cringe to nobody on earth. Be kind and humane to 
each other, always serving each other when you can. Be courte- 
ous and gentlemanly to everybody on earth, black and white. 
(Cheers.) But let those men who have held the lash over you for 
so many years; let the men who plunged the nation into a sea of 
fire and blood, let them understand that we have burie<l a quarter 
of a million of brave men to save our liberty and maintain yours. 



lO-i TRIP OF THE OCEAN US. 

Let it be understood, while the names of those heroes sound in 
our ears, that we have resolved that it is written on the leaves of 
our Bibles, and sworn on ijended knee, that the United States of 
America shall be one nation, and a free nation forever. (Great 
cheering.) 

You have helped us to fight our battles. You have taken your 
muskets, you have stood by the old flag, you have given us your 
prayers, you have had your heart's desire fulfilled. We have 
triumphed, and in our ti"iumph we want all to stand up and re- 
joice together. 

I want every man and every woman to understand here that 
every neglect of duty, every failure to be industrious, to be 
economical, to take care of your families, to support yourselves, 
to secure the education of y'our children ; all these things will be 
put in our faces as a reproach, and your old masters will point 
you out and say, " We told you so," We have said for more 
than thirty years you were fit for liberty. We have maintained 
it amid obloquy and reproach, and in the halls of Congress were 
made a by-word. Now your masters have plunged the country 
into war. We have beaten them ; we have whipped them ; their 
power is broken, and it is lost forever. (Great cheering.) Now 
the great lesson is for you in the future to prove that we wei'e 
right ; to prove that you were worthy of all liberty and power 
yourselves. As you have used the bayonet, prepare yourselves 
for the future so that you can use the ballot in the cause we have 
nuiintained. (Great cheering.) 

I see around me ti-ue and noble men who have come to see you 
in South Carolina. I know you will be glad to see and hear 
them, for they will speak to-day as they have spoken far away 
when the task-master stood over you. They come to look upon 
you as freemen ; they have been your champions, and will be 
your friends in future difficulties. We simply ask you, in 
the name of your friends, in the name of the country, 
by your good conduct, by all that can elevate you and 
improve your condition, to show to your countr}', to 
even y<jur old masters and mistresses, to everybody the 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 105 

world over, that it was a sin against God, a crime against you 
to hold you in shivery ; to show that you were worthy to have 
your names enrolled among the freemen of the United States of 
America. (Great cheering.) 

Judge Kelley, member of Congress from Pennsylvania, 
was next introduced to the audience, and said : 

Mr. Chairman, and my Friends — I am used to talking to pretty 
large audiences, and talking with a good deal of freedom, and I am 
not often confused at the beginning ; but upon my word I do not 
know Avhere to begin to-day, I have so much to say to you. 

I have not come to you from Massachusetts. We had no AVil- 
liam Lloyd Garrison to keep us up to our duty conscientiously. 
I come from Pennsylvania, a State — and by the way, I hope all 
Northern men here will note the feet, for it shows how bad it is 
to depart, however slightly, from a great principle — from Penn- 
sylvania, which was the first to abolish slavery by legislative 
enactment in its own limits ; and yet under the influences of cor- 
rupt politicians, forgot its first love of freedom, and gave as a 
great statesman, a President to the United States in James Bu- 
chanan, who, as President, betrayed the country in the name of 
slavery, and consented to the beginning of this war. (Groans.) 
A State, the first to abolish slavery, to make every man on its 
soil a citizen ; which, in 1838, instead of sowing freedom, deprived 
every colored man within its limits of the right he had before en- 
joyed to citizenship and the exercise of suffrage. Bear her his- 
tory in mind, oh ! ye Northern men, and determine that, in begin- 
ning the work of reconstruction, we will make no departure from 
the requirements of absolute justice, and that we will decree that 
every man upon our soil shall enjoy all the rights of men ; that 
we will measure for others by the standard we set up for our, 
selves, and not be content while any right we enjoy is withheld 
from another. 

I will not, my colored friends, talk to you about the past. God 
knows that you understand it all too well. It is written in the 
depths of your hearts ; it is with you in the morning and in the 



106 miP OF THE OCEANUS. 

evening. When the dream disturbs your soul, it is ])y reascni of 
the wrongs the white man has done you. 

I turn to the hopeful future not to flatter, though I might 
very well enln-tain you with a favorable recital of your deeds 
during the last i'our years, but to remind you that, though it 
is true that you henceforth have no earthly master, you still have 
a master, the GREAT BEING, that strengthened and guided your 
eminent friend William Lloyd Garrison ; (great cheering,) the 
Great Being that trained in huml)le ])overty and simple-minded- 
ness, Abraham Lincoln, a happy moulder of America's destiny ; 
the eood God whose stars shine together over the slave's hut as 
well as over your master's jialacos. His laws you must obey. 
You must worship him not alone at the altar, but in eveiy act of 
your daily life. It is not enough, it will not be enough that you 
are faithtid in observing the Sabbath ; that you go to Him with 
your sorrow ; that you remember Him in your joys. You must 
rememl)er that among His divine laws is that which i-eaehes us 
all : " In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat th}- bread." Labor, 
labor, is the law of all ; and your friends in the North appeal to 
you to-day to stand by them, and help them in the great work 
they undertook t(.) do for you: to do for the country as it is doing 
for you. 

We want you to work with us, and we want you to do it by 
working here in South Carolina, and earning wages, taking care of 
your money, and making jirofit out of that money. Work on 
the plantation, if that is all you can do. Work in the workshop, 
if you can do it, and work well. He who does a day's work, and 
could have done it better, has cheated himself. Strive that your 
work on Monday shall l)e better done than it was on Saturday ; 
and when Saturday comes round again, you shall be able to do a 
■more skillful day's work. 

We at the North learn three or four trades ; and when one of 
you finds that you can do better for himself and his family by- 
changing his pursuit, if he be assured of it, let him change it. We 
white boys at the North do not care much about being born to 
poverty. We don't care much of being depi-ived of education, in 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 107 

its broader sense, in early life. Why, it is only a stimnlus. We 
run a race a<i;alnst a rich man's son carryin<r weight, and when we 
heat him under the weight we feel the prouder for it. Thus the 
truly great man who has addressed you toiled through the earlier 
years of his manhood, as well as his boyhood. Yet what South 
Carolinian of the last generation has had his name written higher 
in the scroll of fame, or graven more deeply in the hearts of the 
American people, than that of Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts. 
(Great cheering.) 

The humble individual who now addresses you, never saw the 
light of day in a school-house after he was eleven years old ; and 
yet I know boys who went through college, whose cases 1 have 
tried as a judge, and whose interests I have represented in the 
Congress of my country. Now rememlier that we are all men, 
and what one man can do in Massachusetts, and another in 
Pennsylvania, you can do here ; and though the colored man is 
not allowed to vote in my State, I think I will write to my elo- 
quent friend here, (Dickerson) to come and stump the district 
with me at the next election. I think he would show some of my 
constituents that we have no right to deprive the State of such 
intellectual power as he disclosed this morning. We have no 
right, my white brethren, to rob the commonwealth of such 
talent. (Cheers.) 

I do like to look at these women here. I have a great respect 
for women; my mother was one, you know. (Laughter.) My 
wife is a woman. (Continued laughter.) But when 1 was not an 
abolitionist, while I was under the delusion that the old slave- 
masters used to teach, that you were little better than brutes, I 
never read or heard the story of a woman being outraged that my 
fingers did not tingle, and my blood swell from my heart to the 
throat. You are to be the mothers or wives of freemen's homes, 
and you must make those homes happy. You are to be the 
mothers of American citizens. You must strive to make them 
intelligent, educated, moral, patriotic and religious men. Many 
of you cannot read. You are not too old yet, and the mother that 
can read, can half educate her own child by helping it with its les- 



108 TKIP 0¥ THE OUEANU8. 

sons ; and the mother that has little learning will get a great deal 
move 1)}' striving to hear the child's lessons, and so too, with the 
father. See to it that yon make home happy, and then see to it 
that the good man makes home comfortable. You are not going 
to live in a slave hut. Work industriously ; work, be true, and 
then see that the carpet on youi- floor is one to your wife's taste. 
You can get at the conscience and heart of a great many Northern 
men who now think of you only — may I be pardoned for quoting 
the language in this sacred building — as "damned niggers;" you 
can get at their heart and conscience right straight through their 
pockets. And when they find that the colored farmer wants to 
buy goods from them, and that the colored tradesman has a great 
deal of money to spend, they will begin to think that you are Mr. 
John Jenkins and Mr. Joseph Brown. (Great laughter.) You 
are not to be contented with the common schools of Charleston 
for your children. 

I am sorry that I do not know my colored friend's name, who 
spoke this morning. (Cries of Dickerson, Dickerson.) Well, if 
Dickerson had been well trained in his youth, and put in a good 
preparatory school, passed through that with honor and credit, 
and then entered the law office of John C. Calhoun, I have no 
doubt, nor can any one who heard him, doubt that he would have 
been one of the most distinguished lawyers of South Carolina to- 
day, (Tremendous cheers.) You may as well pay your fees in 
future to some lawyer Dickerson, as to a lawyer with a fairer 
flxce, and I have no doubt in the world, that colored physicians 
will attend your women with as perfect attention, as the kindest 
physician in the State. Just now you are to give your children 
the l)est education you can. Our Northern colleges are founded 
to make two things out of, reputation and money for the Pro- 
fessors ; and when you are ready to send four or five hundred 
students to a University, you will find the University will be 
there to receive them. I am laying out a pretty big job for you. 
It is not a bit too big. Don't you know that colored men dis- 
tinguished themselves in a harder job than that at Battery 
Wagner, at Olustee, and almost a hundred fields of battle ? You 



TRIP UF THE OCEANUS. 109 

can do in your quiet homos, and in your daily life, what they have 
done upon the field. Show your manhood and womanhood. I 
am only asking you to do what millions have done before; what 
you too might have done, had the opportunity offered. 

J was just going to mention one of your number — one whose 
name has been sung and honored. One of your number is Cap- 
tain Small, of the steamer " Planter." He took part in the celeln-a- 
tion yesterday. I heard that he was here. If he is, I want t(j see 
and know him. 

[The speaker then aUudecl to the invasion of a town 
in Pennsylvania, by Early's army : the name of the town 
we failed to catch.] 

He said when Early's army approached the town, the Burgess 
walked out eight miles to surrender the town, and ask for its ])ro- 
tection. That Burgess was David Small. 

Robert Small, being entrusted with a steamer and steam 
engine, which it was never supposed he could ever get out, did 
run it out, and did, therefore, make the circle complete for yes- 
tei^day's celebration. The white soldier was there, the white 
sailor was there, and the black soldier and the black sailor, but 
they were there under white command. There was nothing at 
all to show that the negro could do without a leader ; but there 
came the " Planter," which Robert Small, the black man, had taken 
by his own conniiand from the armed State of South Carolina, 
showing that your race have enterprise, energy, capacity, and 
may be trusted to go alone, at least on steamboats. (Cheers and 
laughter.) 

But I am detaining you too long. My friends from the North, 
these are to be our fellow-citizens. (Cheers.) It is for us to say 
how soon, and to use all our influence at home. I thank the good 
God that he has so interwoven our welfiire with our justice to 
them, that if we do not, under the scourgings we have received, 
do justice to them now and at once, his plans for scourging us 
further are already disclosed. There is such a thing as the Con- 
federate debt. How much it amounts to, you don't know, and 1 



110 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

can't 1(01 you. We know that it amouiits to thousands of mil- 
lions of dollars. There is, in my judgment, under Providence, 
but one mode of preventing the early assumptioii of that debt 
l)y the United States Government, and that is to protect your- 
selves, and the loyal citizens all over the South. Let me give 
you an idea. We have not altered the spirit (»f the rebels ; 
we have not converted them so that they renounce the right 
of a State to secede. They still hold the war to be uncon- 
stitutional. Now, if we confine suffrage to the white man alone, 
in the revolted States, every Senator and every Representative 
r-eturned to Congress, will be believers in the doctrine of seces- 
sion, and deniers of the constitutional right of coercing States to 
remain in the Union. Vallandigham, Fernando Wood, and the 
men who controlled the Chicago Convention, have borne con- 
tempt and contumely for what was as dear to them as the apple 
of their eye ; aye, have been four years in maintaining these doc- 
trines ; and if you send from the South its old representatives of 
secessionists, and yet you get the Northern element combined 
with them, they will refuse to provide payment for the interest of 
the Federal debt, unless you embrace theirs also. And they will 
hold by the pocket or its e(|uivalent, the throat of every honor- 
able man, who refuses his bonds, and some Northern compromi- 
ser will propose, as it will be made a tax on the industry t)f their 
Northern friends, that both debts be assumed by the United 
States. How can you prevent it? Why, educate the coloi'cd 
man ; and when the new constitution is made, see that the col- 
ored man's right goes with it. 

Now, my friends, 1 have shown you what I want you to do. 
1 tell you, in closing, to remember that in earning money and 
saving it, and gaining education, and disclosing your moral 
virtues, you are helping us to vindicate your rights, and embody 
your freedom in the institutions of our common country. (Long 
continued cheering.) 

Three cheers were also given for Pennsylvania, the Keystone 
State. The congregation then sung the hymn, " Roll, Jordan, 
roll," and several others. 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. Ill 

At the conclusion, Mr. Garrison said : 

Well, my friends, this is worth coming from Boston to sec and 
hoar. I want to say a word or twt) more, before we separate, l)ut 
1 want to hear some others before I shall speak to you aijtaln. If 
they occupy all the time it will be very well. You will simply 
understand, that my heart is with you, and my benediction. But 
I want the ne.xt speaker to be one not from this side of the 
Atlantic, not an American by birth, but an Englishman; and 
better than that still, one who has a heart as wide as the whole 
world, one to whom the colored race is as much indebted, as to 
any man living. You have heard of the slaves in the West India 
Islands. There were eight hundred thousand of them. Their 
chains were broken long ago. and for many years they have been 
rejoicing in their freedom. They had many friends in England, 
powerful advocates and determined supporters, but their lil)era- 
tion under God, was owing as much — shall I do injustice to the 
living or dead — owing more to the noble man who sits on this 
platform, than to any other jierson in the world — George 
Thompson. 

And let me tell you that when I was in England, then the 
chains were l^reaking in regard to the slaves of the West India 
Islands. Did our friend then say. My work is done. I said to 
him, "But we have yet four milli(^ns, to have their chains broken 
in the United States. If you should come, you will be l)utfeted, 
spit upon, and scorned." He thought himself it would rea(^h to 
that, but he said at once, " I will give myself to their liberation, 
as well as I did to those in the West India Islands, in 1834." He 
came, came over to be buffeted, scorned and persecuted, and was 
hunted like a wild beast, because he pleaded your cause. In 
every town he was mobbed. Assassins dogged his footsteps on 
the right and on the left; and we, his friends, were compelled to 
force him out of the country, to save his life, though he never 
thought of leaving on any consideration. He is here to-day. We 
became acquainted in 1833, in London for the first time, and have 
been one in spirit and purpose ever since. If there is one on 
this globe whom I love and revere, it is George Thompson, the 



112 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

universal advocate of universal liberty and emancipation. (Great 
cheering.) 

A message was received at tliis point of the })r(,)ceed- 
iiigs, from the Citadel Square, stating that a large 
crowd had collected there, and were waiting for speak- 
ers. After a short consultation. Judge Kellogg, mend)er 
of Congress; Joseph Hoxie, Rev. Dr. Leavitt and Major 
Delaney, left the Church, and proceeded to the Square 
to addi'ess the crowds there. 

SPEECH OF HON. OEORGE THOMPSON, 

Before the Frcedmen of Charleston, {S. C.,) in Zion 
Chu/'ch, April 15, 1865. 

Hon. George Thompson, on l)eing introduced, said: 

This is a great day for me. as it is a great day for you. You are 
joyful, and I am joyful. Your cup runneth over, so does mine. 
1 rejoice because I have remembered you in bonds. As it hap- 
pened with you when in bonds, I rejoice with you to-day, being 
in freedom as I also am free. 

This is a jubilee, a spectacle, on which God and the holy angels, 
and the spirits of the just made perfect, look with approval. 

This is an assembly, that conniiands the sympathy of all the 
wise and good throughout the world. I can scarcely believe it 
true, that I stand upon a platform or pulpit in the city of Char- 
leston, in the State of South Carolina, having before me the in- 
spiring, magnificent spectacle of between three and four thousand 
persons, who but yesterday were things, to-day are men and 
women. (Cheers.) It is hard to believe, that I am at once in 
the cradle and the grave of treason, secession and slavery. 
(Cheers.) But yet I believe it is true ; for since I came into your 
city, I have performed all the functions appertaining to a living, 
working man. I have walked, talked, ate and drank. 

What shall 1 say to you now that I am here ? To me it has 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 113 

been given to see two great, pure, signal, glorious triumphs 
effected. To me it has been given the unspeakable privilege of 
being a co-laborer with Wilberforce and Clarkson, who led the 
way in the great struggle for British abolition — the abolition of 
the infernal slave trade, and its child — slavery. 

To me, also, it has been given to see their trium})h ; to see 
them go up to heaven, presenting at the throne of heavenly grace, 
a million of broken manacles, and Africa redeemed from her 
English spoiler. 

Now it is my privilege to be the co-worker and companion in 
joy of the Wilberforce of America — William Lloyd Garrison. 
For thirty years and more my heart has been with you ; with you 
on the plantation, with you on the auction-block, with you in 
your unrequited toil, with you in your sufferings, separations, and 
scourgings; and now I am with you in your freedom. (Cheers.) 
You are no more slaves of these States, for God created all his 
children free. A little while ago, I could say of my own country, 
but nc >t of this : 

" Slaves cannot breathe in England. If their lungs 
Inhale our air, that moment they are free." 

Little did I think that on this 15th of April, 180.5, I should be 
able to stand in the centre of the city of Charleston, South Car- 
olina, and say slaves cannot breathe in America. They touch 
this coimtry's soil, their shackles fall, and they stand redeemed, 
fi-ee forever. (Cheers.) The excellent member of Congress from 
Pennsylvania, has been talking to you of the future, of w^hat its 
rights and its duties will be. And it is to me a matter of sincere 
gratification, that you have pleading your cause to-day, and plead- 
ing it no less earnestly elsewhere, and in the high places of 
your republic, men of that excellent representative State, Penn- 
sylvania. 

My counsel to you would be, co-operate with those excellent 
men. They want not only to make you personally free, your 
bodies as w^ell as the fruit of them, but they wish that you should 
be clothed with the privileges and rights of citizenship. 

Now, many objections will be urged to the granting of this 



114 TRir OF THE OOEANUS. 

right, though it is your right aceonliug to the very principles 
upon which the nationality of this country rests. And though 
those scruples may be removed and prejudices conc^nered, that the 
hands of your friends may be strengthened, see that by youi' own 
conduct you justify all that your friends say in reference to 
your fitness and capacity, not only to exercise those rights, but 
that power which belongs to citizens of tlie Fnited States. You 
are citizens. But yesterday you were not even regarded as men. 

You were human beasts of burden ; you were animated, two- 
legged hoeing machines; you were ])ouglit and sold like beasts of 
burden. 

But you are transformed into men and women, equal to the 
President of the United States, for he is a man and no more, 
and each of you of the male sex is a man, and no less. 
Every principle upon which your government was founded, re- 
gards you as equally entitled, with Abraham Lincoln himself, to 
exercise the rights and privileges of citizenship. Now you have 
to be obedient to the laws. And the leading members of Con- 
gress are with you. The j'^yi'^S people of the North 
are with you. This you know. They sought you with 
their prayers, while you were yet slaves, while yet secluded. 
Since Generals Grant and Sherman, and Sheridan and Banks, 
have given them permission to traverse the coast and soil rjf this 
country, they have come down to you in the shape ofteaciiers. 
who have been appointed to administer to your temporal and 
physical wants, and prove that the North is awake, and has put 
on the garments of repentance, trying to make restitution to you, 
in that they saw the anguish of your souls. God also is with you, 
[](' lias been raising the storm that has shaken this land ; he has 
directed the whirlwind. He has decreed that, ere yet these 
States are one, ere yet the Constitution is established in its 
former extent, the slave shall be free, and justice satisfied. 

America ti-ied the experiment in 1789, of establishing upon 
this continent a Government, founded upon a compnnnise of 
iuiiiinii rights. It founded a Government, on complexional dif- 
ferences, it built a temple to lilierty, and called upon the world 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 115 

to admire, aye, upon all its tribes but oiie, to enter into it. It 
shut out one class, and that was your class. There was no place 
for the negro there. The ordinary term of a human life has gone 
by. Where is the Union now ? Slavery has betrayed and dis- 
membered it. 

The old edifice will have at least to be raised upon a ])(>pnhir, 
more solid, and more enduring foundation. Now is the time. 
Let the fundamental law upon which this republic shall rise, be 
the immutable law of right. If not, as the first temple has fallen, 
so shall the second. Sound policy, as well as duty, dictates to 
the people of this country, that they should base their Union 
upon a righteous principle. 

What is it we who come from Europe, ask the people of 
America to dol What ^\ as my cry when I came here more than 
thirty years ago ? Did I come seeking money of the Govern- 
ment? No! My message to the people of this country, was 
simply to loose the bands of wickedness, and let the oppressed go 
free. That was my message. Say unto my people, bi-eak every 
yoke. I said it was for the interest of all to do right. 

I have, for the last fourteen months, and more, been traveling 
over the North. But what a revolution has taken ])lace there ! 
Thirty years ago, America vomited me out of her mouth. She 
spewed me forth, and drove me from her shores as a distur])er, a 
fire-brand, an incendiary. 

During the thirty years that have elapsed between my 
first and last visit, a revolution has taken place at the North. 
I left the colleges on the side of slavery. I returned and 
found the coleges on the side of liberty. I left America, 
when there was but one man in the house of Congress, 
who dared to present an anti-slavery petition. I returned, and 
found scarce a man in Congress, Avho would not deem himself 
honored by being selected to present such a petition. I left 
America, with the newspapers of the country, and the literature 
of the country on the side of slavery. 1 returned, and found the 
newspapers and literature, the best and most popuhir w(jrks ])ub- 
lished in the country, on the side of freedom. I find the man who 



116 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

towers tlic highest in the estimation of the people of the North, is 
the man most earnestly, most sincerely, most uncompromisingly 
devoted to the cause of freedom, of imiversal — impartial freedom. 

I left America with the government itself on the side of slavery, 
— a slaveholder in the chair, and slaveholders ruling by them in 
the Senate and House of Representatives. Slaveholders had a 
great representation. Slaveholders governed East and West, 
North and South. They were not only lords on their own 
plantations, not only rulers of these sunny estates of the South, 
but absolute tyrants over the whole country. And I was sensible, 
in fine more sensible of slavery at Washington, than I am now 
sensible of the existence of slavery at the South. 

Instead of Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, a slaveholder, in the 
chair, I find, when the men appointed had to select a Chief Magis- 
trate, they passed over the heads of all the slaveholders ot this 
continent. They did not even select one of the greatest in elo- 
quence, the best versed in political chicanery, but they selected 
one of humble origin, born, it is true, in a slave State, but a self- 
made man in a free State, a rail-splitter, a patriot soldier, honest 
Abraham Linc(jln. 

All the dominant, overruling elenients are enlisted on your 
side. The great majority of the North have declared solemnly, 
in National Convention assembled, that slavery has been the 
cause of this late rebellion. They say it is adverse to republican 
institutions, and therefore must be utterly and forever abolished 
on this soil. All the elements to-day are in your favor. Spri'ad 
your sails, and catch the auspicious breeze ! Your President is 
with you in sympathy, in purpose, in the exercise of those large 
powers with which he is entrusted. He has spoken the word, 
and will not be content until that word is incarnated with the 
freedom of every slave in the United States. 

Til our notice of this meeting, we cannot do better 
tlian give place to the following ])aragraph. from the 
pen of Rev. A. P. Putnam : 



TRIP OF THE OCKANIJS. 117 

'' The enthiisiasiii of that assembled m altitude, at the 
lirst mention, by one of the speakers, of the name of 
Abraham Lincoln, was such as to dety description. It 
was intense, wild and almost fearful. The vast crowd 
cheered and waved their handkercliiefs, some screaming 
for joy, and others raising their hands and clasping 
them in gratitude to God, and hundreds weeping the 
tears they could not repress, as tliey thought of their 
great friend and benefactor. How little did any of us 
dream that on that very nioi-ning, he lay silent in 
death at Washington. Who can tell what anguish of 
soul, the dread tidings will carry to the millions of 
Clod's poor at the Soutli who have learned to love him, 
as their great and good deliverer. Heaven comfort 
their hearts, and grant that the President's successor 
may also prove their father and friend. 

•'• Too much cannot be said in })raise of (Ten. Saxton, 
who is in command of that department. Faithful, vigi- 
lant, loyal and true to freedom, he commands the <;on- 
tidence of the (Tovernment, at Washington, and the ad- 
miration and sympathy of every patriot, white or l)lack, 
within the limits of his jurisdiction." 

As it was not the good fortune of the writer to be 
present at this inside meeting, he gives the above able 
reports of the speeches, by tlie reporter of the " Char- 
leston Courier," and the account of the subsequent ex- 
ercises, as written by Mr. A. M. Po\vell, the (-(jrrespond- 
ent of the ]N. Y. Tribune. 

He says: "Judge Kelly spoke to them, as he has in 

8 



118 



TRIP OF THE OCRANUS. 



CoiiiiTess, uiul elsewhere spoken for tliem ; of the res- 
ponsibility i>f citizens, which they are to assume, or 
should assume in the new government, to be established 
in the South. This point too, was well made by each of 
the other speakers. He spoke of the need and value of in" 
dustry, to iniprove their homes, and to secure education 
and its advantages, for themselves and their children. 

" The addresses of Messrs. Thompson and Tilton were 
exceedingly well adapted to the occasion, and fully 
worthy of those gentlemen. It was a great meeting, 
and will inark distinctly the beginning of a new era. 
Mr. Redpath told them of Wendell Phillips, whom they 
much Avanted to see and hear, and they voted to invite 
Mr. Phillips, to address them in Charleston, on the -1th 
of July next. They voted with an emphasis so loud 
and strong, that Mr. Phillips might well nigh have 
heard it in Boston. Their invitation was extended also 
to the American Anti-Slavery Society, and to Frederick 
Douglass, to meet with them on the next national 
anniversary." 

AN OUTSIDE MEETING. 

" Outside of the Church, while the meeting, of which 
I have spoken was in progress, the Rev. Theodore L. 
Cuyler, of Brooklyn, addressed a very interesting gather- 
ing, of about 2000 children. They commissioned him to 
write to Mr. Lincoln, and invite him to visit them in 
Charleston. Young and old, seemed everywhere to re- 
gard Mr. Lincoln as a father and friend ; whom their 
masters hated so much, thev seem to feel that they can 



TRIP OF THK O0EA.NUS. 110 

trust. Another meeting, at the same time, immense in 
numbers, upon Citadel Square, was addressed by Judge 
Hoxie, of New York, a Senator from Michigan, Major 
Delaney, and others. At tlie close of the meeting, a 
large procession was formed, with bands of music, and 
paraded the streets. It was a great occasion for Char- 
leston." 

It was with reference to this procession, without 
doubt, that Mr. Cuyler wrote to the ^' Evangelist."" 

" On Saturday morning last, I was standing in front 
of St. Micliael's Church, with Wm. Lloyd Garrison. 
Just then the band <jf the 127th Regiment came down 
Meeting Street, playing Old John Brown., most su- 
perbly. 

"' Only listen to that in CharlestoTi streets!' exclaimed 
Garrison, and we l)otli broke into tears. I had many 
such startling and almost incredible surprises, during my 
visit. For example I stood with Ward Beecher, Gar- 
rison, George Thompson, the English Reformer, and 
Theodore Tilton, beside the grave of John C. Calhoun, 
in St. Phillip's Churchyard. It is a ]>lain brick oblong 
tomb, covered with a marble slab, and bearing the 
single word ' Calhoun.' ' There,' said Garrison, lies 
a man whose name is decayed worse tlian his moulder- 
ing form; the one may have a resurrection, tlie other 
never!' Several northern shells, have fallen and burst 
near that tomb ! Did none of the bones in that sepul- 
chre rattle., when the voice of William Lloyd Garrison, 
was heard at the ^rave's month f 



120 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

Leaviuu' now the records of these woiulertul •' Fi-eed- 
nieii's Meeting's,*' with the regret that we have not all 
the addi'esses upon that memorable occasion, reported 
ill full, we return to explorations and incidents in otlier 
parts of the citv. 

We may tirst notice liowever, that the " Citader' it- 
self, together witli tlie faminis Orphan Asylum, is now 
used as a barrack for coloi'ed troops, who tiock into 
our army at the rate of about one hundred per day. 

The splendid marble (Justom House, which was in 
process of erecti(»ii at the outbreak of the war, 
tliougli standing on the margin of the harbor, es- 
cu])ed the iron missiles with but little damage. It is 
now being stored with the confiscated cotton which is 
rapidly arriving. 

The long Market extending from Meeting street to 
the harbor gives evidence, at the iip])er end, of the 
revival of business. The stalls are rented by negroes 
and (Termans for M per week, where they carry on 
the meat business in a small way, and making a bare 
livelihood. A^ery little money is in circulation yet. 
Confederate notes wei-e bought by the bushel at a 
nominal i)rice, and carried away as curiosities by our 
steamer's com])any. 

We found the [)ricedist lower than in New Vork, 
though it must be confessed that the quality of the 
meat was also decidedly lower. 

Sirloin steak sold for 25 cents a pound ; AFutton from 



TiaP OF T!IK OCEANUS. 121 

20 to 25 cent:? ; Yeal, 25 cents; Butter, H5 cents; Lard. 
30 cents ; (Jheese, 25 cents. 

" In Federal money, we presume," we said. 

^ Cei'tainly." replied tlie ebony salesman. 

"' But how much in (Confederate currency V 

"Oh, sar, we better (jih it to you, sar !'' 

Potatoes and green peas were abundant, and we 
were told that strawberries would he in market in a 
few days. Behind some of the stalls were well-dressed 
and handsome mulatto girls, having bouquets of choice 
flowers for sale. Advancing toward the ri\er, the mar- 
ket became more and more deserted, and the stalls 
entirely empty. 

St. Michael's Church, witli its tall tower, which had 
been a target for the Federal gunners, was vieweci with 
much interest. A large shell hole adorns the middle of 
the tower, while another through the rear wall, let 
daylight into the darkened sanctuary, demolished the 
altar, and, according to Mr. Cuyler, " broke the com- 
mandments, graven on tables of stone, the discrimina- 
ting missile sparing the three commandments, " Thou 
shalt not steal — thou shalt not kill — thou shalt not 
commit adultery — the \'ery precepts that Charleston 
needed most." We trust that shell will receive full 
absolution, since that was its iirst and last offense 
as>;ainst the commandments. Seven of the bells belong- 
ing to the chime of this Church were melted into can- 
non on account of the scarcity of metal. 

Another Church, whose name we do not recollect. 



122 TRIP OF THE OCEAN US. 

had been very rudely handled, being but little better 
than a crumbling ruin. 

The little "Church of the linguenots," in semi-Gothic 
style, attracted the observation of all. It is built of 
greyish stone, and stands in the midst of a rural kirk- 
vard, wliich must once have possessed great beauty. 
There the tall trees still wave over mossy and moulder- 
ing graves, ploughed by cannon shot, and slabs bi'oken 
by the exploding shell. In their branches were singing 
the mocking birds as in other days, and in their dense 
shadow still l)loomed the wikl-brier rose and trailing 
jassmine. A cow was browsing from the mr>unds of 
the graves, and as we stood musing upon the devasta- 
tion of war, and the awful retribution which has come 
ui)on the devoted city, two carrion crows, with hoarse 
and dissoiuint cawing, rose out of the l)oughs above our 
heads ; and, flapping their great white-ti])ped wings, flew 
lazily across the street and perched upon a lofty dwel- 
lino;. Alas ! thought we, the crows and buzzards sittino- 
on ruined towers and spires, dressed in deepest black, 
are almost the only mourners over the scathed and 
blasted city I 

The interior of the Church is sadly ruined. Two 
immense holes upon either side, just beneath the cor- 
nice, show where the destroyers entered. The chande- 
liers wei'c struck and shivered, wliole tiers of pews 
were torn up, and the walls frightfully scarred. Piles 
of stones and wood and rubbish lie about the floors. 
Prayer books and hymn books, cushions, dirt and dust 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 123 

complete the scene of confusion. Happily, the marble 
tablets, with their inscriptions in French and English, 
have been spared. However just one might feel all tliis 
punishment to be. it would l)e impossible to exult t)ver 
sncli a spectacle. 

^Nearly opposite the " Church of the Huguenots," is 
the old "Planter's Hotel,"* long since rendered unin- 
habitable. It was fairly riddled. Since the occupation 
of the city by our forces, permission has been given to 
Mrs. Eliza Havens to live in its rooms, aiul teach her 
little school. 

This woman was born at the North, has lived in 
Charleston twenty years, and throughout the entire war, 
was a declared and unflinching Unionist. She has suf- 
fered incredible hardsliips, having been twice shelled 
from her house by day, and once at night ; threatened 
with imprisonment and death, robl)ed of all property — 
some $12,000 at the beginning of the war — and re- 
duced to actual beggary. We found her standing at 
the door of the Hotel, very meanly dressed, and bear- 
ing every mark of suffering upon her countenance. 
She o-ave us the most cordial welcome. She declares 
that the old flag has always been " her soul's delight," 
and that she often sang " The Star Spangled Banner " 
in the streets of Charleston, with her enemies on every 
side. How trustworthy these statements may be, we 
leave others to judge. Upon stating the case to the 
passengers in the evening, a purse of $25 was raised 
for her; which, added to contributions by the kindly 



124 TRIl' OF THE OCEANUS. 

Mr. Edward Ball and others, made the sum of $85 — 
sufficient for present exigencies. Her case was referred 
for farther investigation to our worthy Mayor, who 
was to remain in the city a few days longer. •' 

Tlie " Charleston Hoter' was the only one open at 
that time, and was kept l)y Mr. J. P. Stetson, brother 
of the present proprietor of tlie Astor House, 'New 
York. It was crowded dui'ing our sojourn to over- 
flowing, and its tables were said to be inviting. 

The '•' Mills House" was utterly tenantless. 

The ''(Jircuiar (■luirch," or all that remains of it, 
was interesting only from the fact, that within it, the 
first secession sermon was ])reached. K^othing but |)or- 
tions of its walls, and half of the tower remain. 
Within, the enclosure is overgrown with grass and weeds, 
upon which cattle would find good browsing. 

Next to it is tlu- niin of "Institute Hall," of which 
scarcely one stone or brick is left u})on another. Here 
the "Ordinance of Secession" was passed by five hun- 
dred majority. Here also the (convention was held 
which nominated Stephen A. Douglass for the Presi- 
dency. Passing down Hayne street, we came to the 
" Ration House," or, as it is called by the proprietor, 
" The Invalid's Commissary." 

Standing, sitting and lying around the entrances, were 
hundreds of poor freedmen and women, in every stage 
of raggedness, — waiting their turn to be served. Elbow- 
ing our way through this heterogeneous crowd, we en- 
tered the immense stores of Mr. Geory-e W. Williams, 



TKIP OF THE OCEAMUS. 125 

We found this gentleinau supennteiidiiiii' his work. He 
is of medium size, lono-, sandv, curling hair, and benign 
countenance, and received us with great cordiality. His 
stores, divided bv a central i)artitii)ii. with a large space 
for inter-communication, contain in the right ai)a-rtment, 
hundreds of bags of rice, corn, meal and grits, and in 
the other, the large bins in which these are emptied for 
distribution. The needy recipients enter, oiu; at a time, 
receive a ticket at the counter, and on presenting it. 
with their little l)ags, are served with a ]>eck. or half a 
peck, of rice or grist. We stood and watched these beg- 
gared people. It was a pitifid sight — children, old men 
and women, of every shade, came eagerly up and held 
out their bags for the ration. One girl, of excessive 
blackness, and more completely tatterdemalion, than any 
we had seen, presented her ticket for one half ]>eck of 
rice. The negro filled her bag, and she went ont. Im- 
mediately following her, was a woman of thirty-live 
years, perfectly white, of haggard countenance, and 
dressed in rusty black. She advanced, held out her 
ticket for a peck of rice, and received it. As slie 
turned, she said : 

"Can't you give nie a little -salt to-day f 
" We haven't any salt left," replied the waiter. 
With a sigh, she left the store. Turning towards 
Mr. Williams, in our surprise, we asked. 

" What is that white woman doing here ?'' 

" My dear sir," replied Mr. W., '' that woman, four 



l^fl TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

years ago, was wortli half a luillioii dollars, and lived 
in a line mansion on the Battery.'" 

He then stated the t'aet before mentioned, that the 
cashier of the Bank of Charleston, comes every day to 
his store, to get his peck of rice or meal. 

At onr request, Mr, Williams wrote out a brief state- 
ment, concerning his work, which he brought to the 
" Oceanus,"" just before we sailed. It cannot fail to in- 
terest all our readers, and we therefore transcribe it in 
full. 

STATEMENT OF MR. GEO. S. WILLIAMS. 

"Since the occupation of Charleston, by the U. S. 
troops, about three million pounds of provisions, con- 
sisting of rice, grist, meal and salt, have been issued 
to the poor and needy citizens of Charleston, of all 
classes, colors and conditions. Many who were con- 
sidered millionaires, a few years since, are reduced by 
the war, to want, ])enury and beggary, and are to be 
seen carrving their bajj;s of rations throui^'h the streets 
of Charleston. 

" The Confederate Government, in one way and an- 
other, absorbed all the capital of the banks, and various 
monied institutions, of the city and state. The failure 
of Jeff". Davis & Co., necessarily breaks the monied in- 
stitutions, on which the people relied for support. The 
large amount of provisions being issued, was accumula- 
ted by the city and Confederate authorities. 

" Geo. W. AVilliams, one of the aldermen of the city, 
and chaii'man of the Subsistence Committee, has devoted 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 127 

his whole time for tlic past two years to distriliutiiig 
this food to the poor. 

"■ The Confederate authorities, turned over to him all 
the stores owned by them, to be distributed under direc- 
tion of the City Council, to the poor of Charleston. 

" A large amount of these supplies, was destroyed in 
the burning of the cotton, and tlie explosion at the 
North East Railroad Depot. On the landing of the 
T^nion forces, Mr. Williams furnished Col. Bennet, with 
a list of the stores, and secured a guard to protect them. 
These supplies were taken possession of by the IT. S. 
Government, and turned over to a committee of three, 
to be distributed to the poor of Charleston and vicinity. 

"The large storehouses of Geo. W. Williams & Co., on 
Hayne Street, are used as a depot for distributing 
rations. Tickets are issued to needy families, two-thirds 
being colored ; and thousands of the recipients are to 
be seen daily wending their way to the ' Invalid's Com- 
missary,' for food. 

" These supplies will soon be exhausted, and then What 
will become of this helpless and suffering people? A 
number of tickets have been issued to colored people, 
who have reached their four seora and twenty, (five 
score or 100 ?) This class of citizens, are supplied at 
their own homes." 

The importance of the question asked by Mr. Wil- 
liams, can hardly be ov^er-estimated. These poor de- 
pendent people cannot be left to starvation, and at 
present there is little which can employ their hands in 



128 TKfl' OF TlIK OCEANUS. 

the WHY (if iiHliistry. We spent uiueli time in sounding 
their disposition, now that they nre free. Not one ex- 
pressed an expectation, ov desire that they sliould be 
fed long at the (xovernnient exi)ense. All promptly 
said, ''We want to work and get our own living; we 
want something to do, and wi' will work all the harder 
for being free."" 

Tt would be false to deny that these people are igno- 
rant. How (■(Hild they be anything else^ They need 
instruction in the very rudiments of education, and self- 
supporting industi'v, economy and thrift. But never 
were a people more willing, and eager to be taught. 
They are natarallij intelligent and shrewd. Steady and 
wholesome instruction, will make them useful and etti- 
cient, as they always luive been law-abiding citizens. 
He who sliould expect them to step at once into the 
full daylight of freedom, trom the long, dark night of 
bondage, without being somewhat dazzled, and needing 
some safe guide to lead them, would justly win a repu- 
tation for folly, not far removed from insanity. The 
work of their melioration aiid elevation, will lie slow, 
but it will be sure, for the material upon which to 
work is there — willing hearts, strong liands, and grati- 
tude to their benefactors. 

MAGNOLIA CEMKTKRY. 

Taking a horse and wagon, both of which had come 
down from a former generation, and for which the avari- 
cious })roprietor ciKl'ed the modest sum of $5, we rode 



TRIP OF THE OOEANUS. 129 

throngli the pleasant fields, two miles out of the city, 
to Magnolia Cemetery, the principal burying ground of 
Charleston. The road was tianked by high hedges, 
overgrown with wild briar roses of unusual size, and 
trees adorned with long grey beards of moss. The 
cemetery has once enjoyed high culture, and a reputa- 
tion for great beauty. iS^atural water-courses, or tide- 
ways, wind at will through its whole expanse, and the 
hand of the horticulturist has done much to increase 
its charms. N^ot many splendid monuments are there ; 
the prevailing remembrances of the dead being the 
plain slab, erect, or laid flat above the graves. A 
garden well kept, and abounding in flowers, adorns the 
centre. One monument alone gives celebrity to tliis 
burial-place. It is a pile of marble, of variegated colors, 
elaborately carved and wrought into mosaic figures, of 
remarkable l)eautv. It is the tribute of a husband to 
his wife, and for four years liis own hands have been 
em])loyed upon tlie labor of love. 

An old negro, of intense l)lackness, was our guide 
through this city of the dead. lie ])ointed out the 
graves of some distinajuislied South Carolinians, but the 
natural beauty of the j)lace eclipses all that art has 
done tit enhance its attractixeness. He told us that 
four years ago, he stood at the outer limit of the 
cemetery, and watched the bombardment of Sumter; 
the whole panorama being distinctly visible. The keeper 
of the garden permitted us to pick from its exuberance 



130 TEIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

of Howers, the most exquisite Ixxjuets of roses. Scores 
of our party visited tliis cemetery. 

THE N. E. RAILROAD DEPOT. 

This traii'ic spot was viewed with the most painful 
interest. The accounts ot tlie explosion vary somewhat, 
as to the premeditated slaughter which was etfected 
thei'e. B}' a few, it is claimed that no intentio:! of 
massacre can be charged upon the principals in the 
deed. But in the light of all tliese recent develop- 
ments, the cold-blooded and atrocious conspiracies; the 
deliberate starving of our prisoners ; the iiendisli intro- 
duction of yellow-fever into Newbern, and the attemyjt 
to do the same in New York ; the St. Alban's raid ; 
and the attem[)t to l>urn New York, — the most probable 
account is that which is the most generally believed, 
to wit : that when the Rebels were forced to evacuate 
the city, they resolved to blow up this depot, where 
the Confederate supplies were stored. The poor people 
were told to go tliere and helj) themselves. Soon a 
crowd, consisting mostly of slaves, was gathered there. 
Major Pringle had mined the premises, and was not to 
be kept from, nor delayed in his purpose, although so 
many lives would be destroyed. By some it is averred 
that two or three warnings of this intention were given. 
Grant that there were, does this })alliate the deed ? 
Who but a fiend incarnate, would have given the order 
to ap]»ly tlie match, until he knein that all the innocent 
and hel]»less were safe from harm? The train was 



TRIP OF THE OCEANITS. 131 

fired, and in an instant three Imndred — accordino- to 
some authorities four hundred — human beings were 
bloAvn into eternity. Not long after this occurrence, 
tliis Pringle was captured by colored troops, belonging 
to our army, which insufferable indignity to his royal 
Carolinian blood, so frenzied him, as to betray him into 
the best act of his life, as concerning mankind, the 
blowing out of his own brains with a pistol. 

THE KACE COURSE. 

Rey. J. L. Corning, the correspondent of the " N. Y. 
Sun," thus speaks of this locality, which it was not the 
writer's mournful pleasure to yisit : 

" The old race-course, about a mile outside of the 
city, was the great " prison-pen," where thousands of 
Union soldiers sufiered horrors which Heaven only can 
record. On this accursed, yet thrice hallowed spot, 
during a long and stormy winter, our brave captured 
boys lay hungry and shelterless. I do not mean to ex- 
aggerate — I mean literally shelterless. The ground for 
the space of five square acres is to-day covered with 
holes, into which the poor victims crawled like beasts 
of the forest, to hide themselves from the driving 
storms. Patches of earth, from six to eight feet square, 
are marked off, all over the dreary plain, by ditches 
dug around them, and upon these they lay through 
rainy days and nights, as the best protection that could 
be invented against the pouring floods. A plain board 
fence, on one side of this acaldema, encloses tlu; bui-ial- 



132 TRIP OF THE OOEANUS. 

grouiul ; and here, as they died, they were shoveled 
into the earth like dogs. Over two-hundred head-boards 
can be counted in the yard ; but these only avail to 
keep up a semblance of decent respect for the name 
and memory of the departed. Identification is impossi- 
ble, and the weeping kindred will oidy recognize the 
faces that are gone, when they become radiant in the 
better land, in the last glorious gathering of the good 
and brave."' 

And lest these words of the ''Sun correspondent," 
might be thought extravagant, let us see how another 
observer was impressed by the same spectacle of sug- 
sestive horrors. Rev. A. P. Putnam thus writes to 
the "■ Independent." After noticing the war-scathed and 
utterly desolate situation of the city, he writes : 

""Whatever feeling of i>ity one may entertain tbi- 
those who suffer woes like these, is likely to be dis- 
sipated, to a great extent, l)y a visit to the race-course, 
just outside of the city, where thousands of our ]-)risoners 
were conlined by the rebel authorities. Here is a held 
of ten acres, without a tree or roof to afford the least 
shelter from the liurning heat of the sun, or the pitiless 
l)lasts of the storm. Here, at times, as many as 10,000 
of our soldiers were ke])t under guard, night and day, 
sunnner and winter, witli no canopy above them. l)ut 
the arching sky, and no bed for rei)ose. but the cold, 
danij) earth. The whole surface of their prison-grounds 
is intersected with little trenches, which our brave boys 
dug with their hands, in order better to keep dry, in 



TRIP OF THE OOPJANUS. 133 

wet weather, the places where they were obliged to 
lie. Here and there also, they had scooped out large 
excavations, into which they might crawl and keep 
warm, when the winds were cliill and the storm severe. 
All over this field, many a nohle fellow sntt'ered in his 
wounds, and from disease and starvation. Some of 
them, as they died, Avere denied sepulture by the rel)els, 
and were buried on the spot, l)y their comrades, who 
dug tlieir graves as best they could. Others, three 
hundred in number, wei'O Ixirne a little distance to a 
rising gi'ound, and were laid side by side in rhe earth, 
in several parallel I'ows, with no stone or mark to tell 
their names to the visitor. Hither, to the race-course, 
the fashionable people of the city, were wont to take 
their afternoon drives; and, at a little distance from our 
men, would sit smoking their cigars and drinking their 
juleps, while surveying through their eye-glasses, with 
the utmost complacency, if not Avitli the keenest delight, 
the horrible sufferings of the defenders of the Fnion. 
It was nightfall when I was there. The proud Caroli- 
nian, the ci'uel guard, the midtitude of heroes, — all were 
gone. 

Yet there were the innumerable trenches and excava- 
tions, wliich the hands of our braves had made, — there 
the cold bed of earth, where they had lain, aiul where 
so many of them had sickened and died at last — and 
there, at a little distance, Avere the unknown graves 
uf the martyrs, to the sacred (;ause of Union and Lil)- 

ertv. The wind sighed moui-nfully through the pine 

■9 



134 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

trees, tliat surrounded the little cemetery, which our 
own troops had recently enclosed by a neat fence, and 
I came away, feeling that it was one of the saddest 
scenes I had ever witnessed ; and feeling too, how just 
had been the judgments of God, whi(^li had rained down 
destruction upon that rebellious and cruel city." 

Upon I'eturning to the " Oceanus,"" at 5 o'clock p. m., 
we learned that the i)ilot had declared his unwillingness 
to take the steamer over the bar 1)y twilight, and the 
time of oui- departure had been again postponed until 
the next high tide, at 8 o'clock Sunday morning. The 
majority of the party, very weary by the day's explora- 
tions, were glad to spend the evening quietly on board. 
A few, however, paid a visit to the house of (V)l. 
Beecher, to witness a very unique and impressive present- 
ation to his V)rotlier, Henry Ward Beecher. One of 
the witnesses, the Editor of the "The Union," gives 
the subjoined account. 

''It was made by a l)and of ten colored women of 
Charleston, who had, at an early period, formed an as- 
sociation for the ])nrpose of aiding our sick and woun- 
ded prisoners, in the hands of the Rebels, 

" The difficulties whi(^h they had overcome were very 
great, and the fidelity and courage they had shown, 
such as every honest man must pay a tribute of respect 
to. Three of them had been publicly whipped with 
seventy lashes, for the w^ork tlie)' were engaged in, 
and all of them, compelled to work all day for their 
own sn])port, hnd courted this outi'age by devoting half 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 135 

of the night to tlieir holy labor. I did not arrive in 
time to hear their remarks; those of Mr. Beeclier in 
reply, were simple and touching. He promised them 
the appreciation of the North, and told them that thei'e 
was a movement there to place tlie black equal l)efore 
the laws, with the white, so that they might, free from 
hindrance, l)ecome what tliey could and would. No 
scene in Charleston touched me more than this." 

The evening on board was spent in general con- 
versation, comparison of relics, and musical entertain- 
ment, and at an earlier hour than usual, the cabins 
were deserted and silent. 



CHAPTER A^II. 

The nioi'in'ng of Sab])atli, April lOtli, dawned witli- 
<»iit a cloud. The air wai^ haliiiy and incense-laden. 
Tlie dews of the night had allayed the feverish sultri- 
ness of the day before. It was a matter of some regret 
t(» many that our departure should have been delayed 
nntil Sunday, but we were in the hands of the pilot, 
whose decision to that effect was final. We must go 
when he was ready to take us safely over the l»ar. 
Three or four of our passengers were to remain for a 
few days in the city, among whom were Mayor Wood, 
of Brooklyn, and Tie v. J. L. Corning, wdu>m we regret- 
ted to leave behind. The crowd assembled upon the 
wharves to witness our departure. About 9 oY-lock we 
bade adieu to our friends on shore, many of whom 
were the gentlenuinly officers whose attentions had 
made our stay in the city so delightful ; glanced once 
more at the shot-scarred houses along the Battery, and 
the curious crowd that lined the docks, and wliile the 
band sweetly played tlie farewell and yet inviting 
melody, "Home, Sweet Home I" we moved slowly out 
into the waters of the harbor. Again, we waved saluta- 
tions to the monitoi's and vessels of war; aijain were we 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 187 

Hljrea;?t of Fort Sumter, wliicli in tliat Sabl)atli siinlio'ht 
seemed more tlian ever consecrated to Freedom. We 
could not pass it by, perhaps, never to look upon its 
storied walls again, without the voice of sacred sijng. 
We nueovered our heads as we stood upon the hurri- 
cane and quarter decks. What should meet the demand 
of our emotion save the Old Doxology again ! With 
tearful eyes and tremulous voices, we sang once more 
"Praise God from whom all l)lessings flow!" Tlie 
sentinels within the fort gave answer to the strain l)y 
di]^ping tlie colors and waving their l)ayonets, mIu'cIi 
flashed in the sun. Then again we sang the appro- 
priate and touching words — 

"Out on an ocean all boundless we ride. 

We're homeward bound, homeward bound ! 

Toss'd on the waves of the rou^h, restless tide. 

We're homeward bound, homeward bound !" 

Who shall smile at the mention of tears of joy ( 
Strong, brave-hearted, noble men shed them then and 
there I Reluctantly we turned away from the grand 
old ruin now sinking in the distance. Our eyes had 
seen the "glory of the nation" ascend to supremacy 
above its crumbled walls. Our ears had heard the 
music of its waving folds; our hearts had drunk deep- 
ly of the inspiration of that hour. That was a day 
to be marked " with a white stone" in the calendar 
of every son and daughter of Columbia. Other scenes 
might be eflaced from memory's tablet, but t/uit, never. 
And as we " thought tliereon, we wept," tears of patriotic 



138 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

pride and exultation, yet attempered by the remem- 
brance of the j)i'lv<' at which the triumpli had been 
purchased. 

At leng'tli the bar wa^ crot^sed ; the pilot dismissed, 
and we were alone again u]>on the broad-breasted, 
blue and briny ocean. 

Nothing could exceed the loveliness of those Sabbath 
skies, full of light and peace from horizon to horizon? 
and the bosom of the sea, breathing always with heave 
and swell, and then unbroken by a single white cap 
or the leaj) from its surface of a single one of its 
finny dwellers. 

" Sweet day, .so cool, so calm, so bright. 
Bridal of earth and sky," 

How appropriate that we should unite in worship 
and praise of Him '' whose way is in the sea," and 
*' whose path is upon the great waters." 

At 11 o'clock, religious services were held in the 
Ladies Cabin, conducted by Rev. Mr, Cuyler. 

It was Easter Sabbath, and the opening hymn was 
an appropriate recognition of the great fact of the 
Saviour's Resurrection. 

The Rev. Mr. Putnam read the Scripture, and offered, 
the Introductory Prayer. 

Rev. Mr. Cuyler then preached a timely, impressive, 
and eloquent sermon from Philipians 3, 13 : 

" Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, 
hnt this one thing I do .'" 

The Closing Prayei- was offered by Rev. J. C. French. 



TRIP OF THE OCEiVNUS. 1-39 

In the afternoon at 5 o'clock, services were again 
held, conducted by Rev. H. M. Gallaber, who took for 
his text, Numbers 32, 23: — '^ And he Kure your sin will 
find you out !'' His sermon was illustrative, pungent, 
and practical. 

The Closing Prayer was offered by liev. Mr. Chad- 
wick. 

In the evening a meeting for general conference and 
prayer was held, in which a number of laymen as well 
as clergymen took part. The entire day was fittingly 
and profitably occupied. There were none on board 
who appeared to forget that it was the SahhatJt. All 
merriment was hushed ; becoming seriousness ruled 
every hour. The influence of that "'' Lord's day" will 
not i)e lost. 

Monday passed without any incident worthy of 
special remark. The sky was cloudless, and though a 
smart breeze from the North lashed the sea into white- 
capped billows ; and, as we rounded Ca[)e Hatteraii, 
sometimes dashed the spray upon the quarter deck, yet 
the steamer, cutting the waves at right angles, had far 
less motion than upon the downward trip, and very 
few^ on board were sea-sick. 

In the evening, a meeting was called, at which it 
was resolved to have no speeches ; but, after transacting 
miscellaneous business, to devote the time to musical 
exercises. Mr. Wm. B. Bradbury was appointed to 
conduct them. The Plymouth Collection was used. 
A\\ joined in singing many of its best and most fa- 



140 TRIP OK THK OCEANUS. 

miliar tunes, in some of wliicli, the singers were aecom- 
pmiied by tlie l)rass l)an(l, ])roducing a grand and 
solemn elt'ect. 

At the close of the meeting, seven of the colored 
M'aiters came into the cabin, and for an hour delighted 
the company with their clutrusses, acconn)anied by two 
guitars. The sweetness, compass, and power of some of 
their voices surprised us. They sang only tlie choicest 
of modern ballads and (piartettes. The look of intense 
disgust which mantled the features of llelon Johnson, 
their leader, when asked to sing '• Carry me back to 
Old Virginny/' and his disdainful re]ily, '' We don't 
sing that ii('(jr<f fra-sji^'" were something to be remem- 
bered. 

Tuesday morning arose with tlie beauty of the day 
jU'eceding. The passengers were u[)oii the decks, elate 
with the recollections of the past few days, buoyant 
with delight as they saw at the left, the distant line of 
the shore, and at the riglit, the deep green of the sea 
dissolving into a dee])er l)lue, and with the prospect of 
soon being at anchor in the waters of Hampton Roads. 
When al)out thirty miles from Fortress Mom-oe, om- at- 
tention was called to a large steamer far out in the 
otMng, with her flag at half-mast. It was a matter of 
tem})orary wonder for whom this signal of mourning 
could be displayed. We now saw a pilot-boat bearing 
towards us, her colors also at half-mast. When within 
hailing distance, a passenger shouted : 

"What's the news?" 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 141 

The reply caine l)ac.k faintly, l)ut with startling' ac- 
cents, over the water. 

'' Tlie President is dead !'' and tlie pilot l)oat passed 
on. 

Every face on board the " Oc-eanns" tni'ned ])a]e. 
For a moment every tongne was mute. At last, we 
said among; ourselves: ''It cannot be!" ''It is a cruel 
hoax which these men have perpetrated to cloud our 
joy."" "We do nut believe it." And so half hoping. 
yet cruelly tantalized, we obeyed the summons to the 
breakfast table. But it was little indeed that we I'e- 
freshed ourselves in tluit glo(jmy cabin, ('oming again 
on deck, we discovered another pilot-boat ap])i'oaching, 
with the ominous signal of sorrow drooping midway 
fi'oin the yard-arm. 

Again the earnest shout : 

"What's the newsf' 

Again the reply — "^President Lincoln is dead P^ 

" HoiD did he die f' 

" He was Assassinated I" 

The Ijlood curdled at every heart. "Assassinated I 
When! How! Where! By whom ! For what!" Oh, 
what a torture of suspense ! What a horrible termina- 
tion to all our exultancy! Why were the doors of our 
souls thus rudely torn open, and such a great agony 
rolled in upon them ! We walked in silence up and 
down the decks. We went to our staterooms, and 
poured out the irrepressible tears. We looked in each 
others faces for some gleam of hope or comfort. We 



142 TKIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

brooked impatiently the slow progress of the steamer. 
We imagined woes and anarchies throughout the land. 
We breathed at times the patriot's curse u])on the 
hearts that conceived, and the liands that executed, 
the deed of Hell. 

We pra_yed God to make an utter ;ind awful end of 
the system, which alone could breed such monster-de- 
mons u[)()n the eartli. Our steamer was a seething 
cauldron of grief and indignation. 

At last we touched the dock at F(jrtress Monroe, and 
received the Xew York ]);ipers. with fidl particulars of 
the crime and the martyrdom; the attempt upon Mr. 
Seward's life, and the contemplated taking otf of Gren. 
Grant, and the entire Cabinet. 

We were invited to visit the Fortress. At any other 
time that inmiense and splendid work, with its grey 
walls and deep moat, its monster guns, its casemates, 
its magazines, its green fields and o[)ening foliage, its 
connnanding prospect of the " Roads," and the large 
fleet of Government vessels, of the " Rip Raps.'' and 
the historic locality where the '' Monitoi'"' and " Mer- 
riniac," decided national and naval problems for all 
coming time, — at any other time, these would have 
commanded our absorbed attention, and awakened (:»ur 
enthusiasm. 

But now we walked mechanically towards the en- 
trance, gazed mournfully upon the drapery of black, 
with which the Provost-Marshars and Quartermaster's 
oftices were shrouded ; the dear face of the departed 



TRIP OF THE OCEAN US. 143 

President above tlieir ciiti'<uices, mikI framed in crape ; 
we were "like them that dream,'' as we moved in slow 
procession along the ])arapets, scarcely noricint;' the 
wonderful armament of the Fortress, and the panorama 
on every hand, and in less than ;ui hour, returned to 
the steamer, weary, heart-sick and desolate. 

Not the least touchini;- and impressive s[)ectacle, was 
the grief of the coh)red men, women and children, who 
sat by the wayside or moved about as if bewildered and 
deserted. 

One woman of middle age. whom we met as we 
came out of the Fortress, had not heard of Mr. i^in- 
coln's death. When iidbrmed of it, she threw u}) her 
arms with a wild cry of despair, wrung hei" hands, sank 
down upon the grass, and bursting into a flood of tears, 
ex(^laimed, "O Lord! () Lord! what slicdl we do now? 
what ^hall we do now !'" There were few dry eyes 
among those wlio witnessed that sight. 

A number of these Idack people, were sitting around 
a table, upon Mdiicli they had eggs and a few articles 
of provision for sale. 

U]»on being asked what they thought of Mr. Lin- 
coln's death, one replied : " A¥e must jes pray all de 
more I" iVnother said : " Our father is gone ! But dey 
can't kill de Lord, I'se snre of dat V And still another 
in similar strain : 

"Oh! we hab lost onr dear father; but bress the 
Lord, dere is one friend we hab above dat they can't 
shoot — de Lord Almighty, He's above us all.'' 



144 TRIP OF THK OOPJANUS. 

And so \vc knew the cry of wailing- and anguish, 
would go up from eveiT rice and cotton field of all the 
South, from <-hese trusting creatures, and from every 
dusky mourner 1)et\veen l)oth oceans, from whose hands 
the beloved martyr had smitten the accursed cluuns. 
and that cry would enter the ear of the Lord of Hosts, 
who has written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay." 

The brief visit at Fortress Monroe, made scarcely a 
detinable impression, save that of universal gloom. It 
had been proposed to make flying calls at Norfolk. 
Portsmouth ; and, if a ])ermit could be obtained from the 
Secretary of War, to spend a day at Kichmond, l)ut 
the s])irit of siglit-seeing was crushed. We felt that res- 
ponsible duties called us home, and decent respect for 
the dead at the (Ja]utal, re(piired us to a})j)ear no longer 
in the capacity of excursionists. Retui'uing on board 
the " Oceanus,'' a meeting was called to decide u[)on 
our course. A vote l)eing taken, it was resolved, by a 
large nuijority, to proceed directly, and with all des- 
patch, to New York. After taking on a sujjply of 
water, the steamer was again under way homeward. 

A considerable number of our ]»arty left us at Vort- 
ress Monroe, to go to AVashingt<»n, and attend the funeral 
of the President, upon the following day. Among these, 
we noticed Messrs. Cyrus P. Smith, Bryan H. Smith, (Jhai-1- 
ton T. Lewis, S. L. Husted and daughter, E. J. Ovington 
and lady, together with others, whose absence we regretted. 

Just before leaving the wharf, a fireman, in shoveling 
coal in one of the bunkers, discovered three blockade- 



TRIP OF THE OCEANTIS. 145 

riiimers, wlio liad escaped from confinement in Char- 
leston, and stolen their passage northward in our 
steamer. They were handed over to the authorities, 
and placed in tlie lock-up of Fortress Monroe. Two 
other vagabonds, who had stowed themselves away be- 
low, after we landed at the Fortress, were also brought 
to light, and led off from the steamer, with wrath and 
vengeance upon their ugly faces. It was a relief to be 
rid of these not doubtful characters. 

Providence smiled upon us out of tlie heavens, witli 
tlie most propitious weather on our homeward way. 

The last evetibuj meeting, was called at S o'clock 
p. j\[. ; which, at the suggestion of Rev. T. L. (hiyler, 
and with the approval of all on board, resolved itself 
into a permanent Association, or " Clul)," to be known 
as the " Sn utter Cluhy A committee was appointed to 
draw up a suital)le Constitution, and name officers for 
the ensuing year. 

A committee was also ap])ointed to prepare and pub- 
lish a memorial volume of the trip and its incidents, 
and another committee to provide an approjjriate badge, 
to designate membership of the " Club.'' Brief ad- 
dresses were made, and hymns sung, in harmony with 
the theme which was upon every heart, and the meet- 
ing adjourned to half-])ast 10 o'clock Wednesday morn- 
ing. 

We again allude to the smooth seas and the match- 
lessly beautiful weathei- of this linal day of the trip. 
Save the unbreakiuii" undulation, from which the sea 



146 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

is never free, its surface was as glassy and calui as that 
of an inland lake. 

At half-past 10 o'clock, accordini;' to adjournment, 
we assembled for the final business nioeting. 

The committee appointed to (»rgaiiize the ''Sumter 
Club/' reported, through its chaii'iuaii. Rev. Mr. Cuvk'r, 
as follows : 

'•The passengers of the steamer '• Oceuuus/' returning from 
its pilgrimage of patriotism to the hallowed walls of Foi-t 
Snniter, do organize themselves into a i)ernianent Association, 
to be known as the 

"Sumter OTlub." 

Art. 1. The otiieers of the ''('lnl».'' shall be the following: 

Presuh'iit, 

EDWIN R. YALE. 

1 ^iee PreMdc n ts. 

Hon. CYRUS P. SMITH, EDGAR KETCHUM. 

K.rerut'ire (Jommittce, 

S. M. GRISWOLD. CHARLTON T. LEWIS. 

EDWARD CARY. 

Secretary. 

E . A . S T U D W E L L . 

Trenmrer. 

RUFTTS R. GRAVES. 

fUinphiin , 
REV. T. L. ClYLER, 

Mrmcal Director, 
WM. B. BRADBURY. 

Art. '2. The '•Club'' shall hold its annnal meeting, and 
elect its officers on the 14th of A|>ril. the aimiversary of the 
resurrection of the nation's (lag ovei" the walls of Foi't 
Snmter. 



TRIP OF THE OCRAMUS. 147 

Art. 3. Every passenger whu left the city of New York, 
on the steamer " Oceanus," shall be a member of this Club. 

Art. 4. All special meetings of the Club, shall be called 
bv the President and Executive Commitree. 



The followino; resolutions, reported by Mr. Cuvler, 
chairman of the committee appointed, were also unani- 
mously adopted': 

Re^olved^ That the cordial thanks of this company l)e 
returned to Brig-Geii. Hatch, and Captain Moore, Cap- 
tain Hunt, and Lieutenant Hagens of his staff, for manifold 
courtesies extended to us during our visit to Charleston. 

Resolved, That to the IS'eptune Steamship Company, 
we hereby extend our acknowledgments for the use of 
their stauncli, powerful, and commodious boat, the 
"Oceanus," and to Ca])tain Young, and the other offi- 
cers, for tlieir untiring attention to the comfort and 
pleasure of the party. 

Resolved^ That we are especially indebted to tlie 
Committee of Arrangements, Messrs. Stephen M. Gris- 
wold, Edwin K. Studwell, and Edward Cary, for pro- 
jecting this excursion, and for the entirely satisfactory 
manner in which they have discharged their varied and 
arduous responsibilities. 

A resolution was also adopted thanking Messrs. Saw- 
yer and Thompson for the piano furnished by them. 

Mr. Wm. J. Martin presented to the Sumter Club a 
Rebel battle-flag, obtained at Charleston, for which he 
received a vote of thanks. 



148 TRIP OF THK OCEANtfS. 

Mr. Henry C Bowen moved tlint tlie Executive 
Committee be empowered to arrange for invitation to 
the meetings of the Chib, of tlie wives of tlie members 
wlio had not l)een partici|)ants in tliis excursion. This 
nu)tion was sustained. 

Mr. Henry C. Bowen also received a vote of tlianks 
for vahial)le assistance rendered tlie Committee (A' Ar- 
rangements. 

On motion of Edwin A. Studwell, 

Resolved^ That a Committee, t<^> be composed of 
Messrs. James Rice, Ceo. E. Brown, and Samuel T. 
Reese, be appointed to procure a suitable Gold Badge, 
with the die of Fort Sumter upon it, to designate the 
members of the Clul); said badge not to exceed $5 
in cost, aiul the number not to exceed l.")(). 

The result of a collection taken up for one of the 
Engineers," whose foot had l)een crushed in the ma- 
chinery, was announced to l)e §5.35, and the sum of i'SO 
was subscribed for the Steward. The waiters also were 
not forgotten, about §30 being raised for them. 

Mr. Edwin R. Yale, President of the Sumter Club, 
cordially invited the members to hold the tirst meeting 
at the "Mansion House," of which he is the Proprietor, 
A])rll 14th, 1S()6, which iiivitation was accepted with 
thankfulness. 

Indeed it was i-emarked that so very thaidcful a com- 
])an_y as ours is vei-y rai'ely seen. 

The Committee a])pointed to secure some trophy from 

*See A]ipen(lix. 



TKIP OF THE OCEANUS. 149 

Charleston, for presentation to tlie Long Island Histo- 
rical Society, and the J^ew York Historical Society, 
reported that they had obtained for this purpose, two 
640 pound shots, designed for the Blakely gun, which 
were acting as ballast on the lower deck. A copy of 
the Presentation Note to these Societies will be found 
in the Appendix. 

The hour having arrived at which the funeral ser- 
vices had been appointed, coinciding with the hour of 
the obsequies at Washington, the Kev. Joshua Leavitt, 
D. D., who presided, introduced the exercises by read- 
ing the hymn, 

" Through all the changing scenes of life, 
In trouble and in joy ; 
The praises of my God shall still 
My heart and tongue employ !" 

wliich was sung to the tune, " St. Ann's," and ac- 
companied l)y the band. 

The Rev. A. P. Graves offered the Opening Prayer, 
Rev. Mr. Cuyler then read the 91st Psalm, after 
which he delivered an address of great pathos, apju-o- 
priateness, and power, the only report of wliich ap- 
peared in '• The Union.'" We regret that every word 
could iu)t have been secured, but must be content with 
publishing all that could be reported by the corres 
pondent of that paper. 

Mr. Cuyler began his address by saying : 
My Friends and Fellow Countrymen : Grief is as simple as 
a. little child. Ui seeks no elaborate language ; it tolerates 
no rhetoric ; it speaks the plain vernacular, the mother tongue. 

10 



150 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

We meet to-day as a part of one great mourning family. 
Beyond the placid waters multitudes of households are mourn- 
ino-, with a grief such as America has not known since 
Washington died. To-day, a mystic chord, like the electric 
cable from continent to continent, binds the hmd in common 
grief. We cry out "Our fiither is dead," for in a sense as 
significant as that of the peculiar people, we may say, '" We 
have Aljraham to our Father." We do not mourn him this 
(lay as a public magistrate, but as one bound to each of us 
so subtly, that had we heard this morning that the head of 
our household had been taken from us, the grief could not 
have cut more closely ; the iron could not have sunk deeper 
into the heart. 

The deed we mourn today, finds its parallel two hundred 
years ago, in the assassination of William of Orange, the 
Deliverer of Holland, who was met on his threshold by the 
murderer hired by Phillip II. and suddenly stabbed to death. 
To-day, a despotism more hideous than that of Phillip has 
aimed an assassin's blow at one whose name shall stand 
before the centuries with that of William the Silent. 1 re- 
member standing, a few years since, on the spot where the 
glorious psalm you have listened to, was read over the re- 
mains of John Hampden, the British freeman. With these 
names, and with that of George Washington, just history 
will inscribe that of Abraham Lincoln. Not among those 
whose intellect alone was great ; not among the law-givers 
or the commanders only will we rank our fallen chief, but 
hi'di above, by the side of that first Father of his Country. 

Abraham Lincoln was one of the finest products of Ameri- 
can repul)licanism, and, except Benjamin Franklin, was per- 
haps, the first great one. He graduated from the common 
school into the grand college of free lalior, whose works 
were the flat-boat, the form, the backwoods lawyer's oflftce; 
and from thence he followed the course of a plain, simple, 
honest man, true to his God and his country, to his great 
destiny. 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 151 

How full ot" anecdotes and incidents was his precious lite. 
They are as familiar to us as honsehold words. Let nie re- 
call one of them, illustrative of his utter simplicity. In 
iS(>0. when he visited New York, to make his great speech — 
intellectually the greatest he ever made before his inaugnra- 
tion — he called with a friend to visit an Illinoian who re- 
sided in New Yoi'k. Entering, he said, " Well, neighbor, 
how are you getting on in New York?" "I have made," 
was the answer, "a hundred thousand dollars, and lost it. 
ITow have you done?" "Well." said this simple man, "I 
have worked hard : I have got a two-stoi"y house in Spi'ing- 
field, and have lai<l up some •t8,000. They talk some of 
making me Vice-President with Gov. Seward, and if they 
do, I can lay up .|20,()()(> out of my salary, and that is as 
rich as I think any man ought to want to be." And this 
man was within six months of the highest position on the 
face of the earth. 

Abraham Lincoln was a man of the peop»le throughout. 
lie was open to everybody. I thank God that he was not a 
man of polished letters, but plain, simple Uncle Abe — 
Father Abraham. His transparent honesty; how we all know 
it ! He spread his bed in the sun. He laid his whole life 
open to the day. And his round-about common sense! — did 
you ever know him to do a foolish thing, to make a foolish 
speech 1 It is true he had humor. 1 am thankful that he 
was saved from the fearful rasp which his duties would have 
inflicted on a sterner and colder nature by the good old Chris- 
tian grace of laughter. And his directness ! — remember his 
words to the Kentucky men : " If slavei'y is not wrong, 
nothing is wrong " What cunning sophistries of Calhoini 
could answer that 1 Remember, too, these sublime words, 
freshly uttered: " If God wills that this mighty scoui'ge of 
war continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's 
two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall b(^ sunk, 
and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be 
paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three 



152 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

thousand years n^o, so still it jnust l)e said that the judg- 
ments of the r^ord are true and righteous altogether." That 
passage will live as long as the English language is spoUen. 

From this point Mr. Cuyler proceeded with a pei-sonal 
tribute to the loveliness of the President's character, and a 
description of the manner in which his death must atfect the 
negroes of the South. Tliere was not a dry eye in the au- 
dience; ev^ery 'frame was shaken with sobs; a i-eport became 
impossible. 

Mr. Cnvler was followed by Rev. A. P. Pntnain, of 
whose excellent remarks we have no report. lie read 
some extracts from a paper found in (Jliarleston, in 
wliich the death of George Washington was ar.noniuted 
and commented \i]>on. 

Mr. Putnam grew warm with his subject, and spoke 
with much propriety and feeling. 

After singing the hynm, 

" How blest tlie rigliteons when he dies," 
prayer was offered by Pev. -J. Clement French, followed 
bv a, brief and feeling address, by Rev. II. M. (Tal- 
laher. 

The hvmn "" For a. season called to part,'* was tben 
sung, the band accompanying. 

Pev. Mr. Chadwick repeated the Lord's Prayer. The 
exercises, which had been most solemn and affecting 
throughout, were closed by singing 

America — "My Country 'tis of Tliee." 

The Benediction was offered by Rev. Mr. (Juyler. 

Our good steamer had already l)rought us within 
sight of the hills of Nevisink, and we began to gather 
ba2:2:ao:e and relics, to be in readiness to debark. The 



TKIP OF THE OGEANUS. 153 

huge sand heap upon tlie lower deck, which had l)eeii 
phiced there for balhist, and in which had been planted 
everj^ imaginable variety of the \'egetable products of 
South Carolina, from the timid, blushing rose, and the 
fragrant mock-orange, to century phmts. aiul sprangly 
palmetto branches, until the place looked like a young 
nursery, was now robbed of all these atlornnients, which 
were carefully bestowed with the baggage, and all things 
were made ready for departure from the stenmer. 

The waters around Sandy Hook were calm as the 
breast of infancy. The two tirniaments of sky and sea, 
cons[)ired to surround us with the most entrancing 
beauty. Long Island stretched its low reach of green 
woodland and Sandy l)each, far out of reach to the 
eastward. The Jersey shore, at the nearer left, retreated 
in grassy slopes and gently undulating hill-sides. Be- 
fore us, directly to the northward, stood a large fleet of 
sloops and schooners, with sails all set, to catch what 
they might of the scarcely whisj^ering breezes. Do you 
say it was fancy, when we tell you that at lirst we ex- 
claimed, " See ! even the vessels of the sea are draped 
in mourning for the Father of the Nation !'' For, from 
every yard-arm in all that fleet, heavy drapery of crape 
seemed to be depending. The illusion, for a moment, 
was perfect, but as we neared them, it became apparent 
that the supposed badges of mourning, wei'e the dee]) 
shadows of the yards, thi'own downward upon the snowy 
sails. We changed our relation to the white-winged fleet, 
and the shadows fled. Not so the shadows from ourliearts. 



154 



TRIP OF THE OGEANUS. 



A few moments later, we spoke a British steamer, 
one of the Cnnard line, jnst out for Liverpool. iShc 
announced the ""capture of Booth,"''' whicli caused an 
exclamation of rejoicing. l)ut papers, soon after re- 
ceived on board, gave no confirmation of the news. 
That sequel was yet to transpire. 

At 8 o'clock we were opposite Coney Island, and 
looking u]) the Narrows. At Quarantine, a health-of- 
ficer l)oarded our steamer, but detained us only a few 
moments. The company were standing upon the for- 
ward decks, exchanging addresses, extending invitations, 
calling up reminiscences, protesting enjoyment of the ex- 
cursion, anticipating re-unions, pointing out objects of 
interest in either city, and thinking of loving ones, who 
waited to give them welcome, while the Band, in tones 
of licpiid richness, played " Home, Sweet Home." 

The '' Oceanus," touched the wliarf Then was there 
"• hurrying to and fro"— adieus were spoken, and many 
an eye was moist. We emerged from the steamer, into 
the streets of New York. What a startling change I 
Ten days before, when wo. left it, every avenue was a 
l)Ower of festive, trium})hal beauty, ablaze with the 
brilliant bands, and spai'kling stars of the nation's flag; 
evejy housetop and mast-head waved them, every s])ire 
ilung out its variegated welcome to the Dawn of Peace. 

Now the metropolis was as mournful as Charleston. 
Emblems of sorrow, multiplied and funereal as the 
Itranches of the cypress, were de})ending fronj door-post 
and balcony, drooping in every window, festooned from 



TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 155 

cornice and corridor, thickly swatliins; the hinips alonji: 
the highways, as for a liglit extinguished forever; setting 
in broad frames of black, that brightest and dearest pic- 
ture, upon which a loyal soul can look, the sunrise 
colors of the banner ; waving solemnly in long black 
streamers above the starry ensign; speaking eloquently 
from monuments of symbolic whiteness, in busts and 
statues of a grand, familiar face and form ; in the re- 
presentations of Columbia's guardian genius, and the 
Spirit of Liberty, weeping by draped and broken shafts 
of marble ; in the profusion of sadly suggestive tokens, 
which (iovered the public courts and halls, and the pal- 
ati;d mansions of tlie rich, and not less touching and 
tender in the simple strip of crape, that hung upon tlie 
cottage or hovel of the poor. It was the saddest and 
the sublimest sight which ever met the gaze of any 
now living man. Yet marvellous as it was, we felt it 
was but a feeble expression of the sorrow, the chasten- 
inii', the ano;uish which reigned within the hearts of the 
|)eople. 

" Oil pardon us, thou bleeding piece of earth ! 
If we are meek and gentle with these butchers !" 

But this thought we may not touch. 

As all that remained of the honored, loved, and now 
sainted Lincoln, lay in state in the City Hall of New 
York, ten thousands of tearful eyes did glance at the 
[»allid, blood- discolored face, pouring all the love of 
their hearts out in that transient glimpse, while tens 
of thousands more, wept bitterly that they could not 



156 TRIP OF THE OCEANUS. 

behold, even in death, the features in whose very re- 
flection, tliey had learned to delight. 

Then, in the distant cemetery of liis S])rini;-tield home, 
witli the voice of })rayer, whose pleading he ever in- 
voked, was earth committed to earth, aslies to ashes, 
and dust to dust. But Patriot— Father — President — Mar- 
tyr — no far-ort' tond) can conline him, no rocky sarco- 
phagus can monopolize his dust. There is a shrine for 
him in every household of the faithful ; an earthly home 
for his omnipresent s[)ii'it in every true j)atriot's heart. 
They may pile for him in every city, the ever-enduring 
granite, whose shafts of grey shall defy the corrosion 
of time, and the lashings of the tempest ; they may 
chisel his form and features in the purest Carrara mar- 
ble; they may inscribe his name and virtues on stony 
entablatures, to be set in rotundas of Court and Capital, 
bnt his noldest, purest, most indestructible monument 
is already reared in the memory and atfections of every 
friend of humanity and liberty, throughout the world ; 
in the breast of every patriot freeman. Avho hails the 
millennial dawn of the Nation's Redemption ; in the 
heart of every tawny son and daughter, who has exer 
worn a shackle — and never, till the stars shall cease to 
burn, and the heavens forget to weep, shall their love 
grow pale, or their tears he dried for hhn, the Deliverer 
of the Xation, the sent of God. Nor t/ie)i, for we shall 
meet and know and love him, in the Kingdom of Glory. 

For Washington and titce twin obelisks shall rise, 
Their base the continent — their apex in the skies! 



TRIP OF THE OOEANUS. 1.57 

Heaven o'ives to but one in a centurv, thine innnortal- 
ity of glory. Thou did'st not know it here, but thou 
art learnins; its measure there ! 

Kest and rejoice forever I There can be no more tit- 
ting words, with whicli to close these imperfect records, 
than the two which need no prefix ; which everv Ameri- 
can will ever be proud to pronounce, and these are, 

S|bKAKAM f^INCOLN. 



M^PENDIX. 



litistclhmeous— documents— iliuibcats— etc. 



Copy ok Dispatch fkoivi Secketary Stanton to Collectok 

Draper. 

'' Wash in. (/(on, ^l^rril 4, 1865. 
Hon. vSimeon Draper : 

The steatnei- Oceanus, chartered by a portion of Mi-. Beech- 
er's congregation, has permission to take to the celebration, at 
Fort Sumter, her complement of passengers, estimated at two 
hundred or upwards, with privilege of stop])ing at Hilton 
Head, Charleston, Sumter, Fort Fisher, Portress Monroe, City 
Point. Norfolk, and Portsmouth, to be subject to the cu,s- 
tomary military regulations at Hilton Head, and other points, 
and such regulations as may l)e established by Gen. Gilmore, 
foi' the ceremonies at Fort Sumter, 

You will please grant the proper clearance. 

E. M. Stanton. 

Secreidri/ of War. 



IHO 



AIM'ENDIX. 



Copy OK THK Pass issued to each passenger of the 

OCEANUS. 

" Was/iijii/foN, April \st, 18t)"). 
Hon. Simeon Draper. Collector, New York: 

You may peruiit such vessels as you deem proper, to go to 
Hiltoi! riead, to witness the ceremonies at Fort Sumter, and 
cari-y as passengers such persons as you think properly may 
go, on th(^ express condition that they report at Hilton Head 
to (xen. Gillmore, to be subject to his regulations while there. 

There should be no privilege of taking passengers indis- 
criminately, but only such passengers as you may give a 
special permit. The clearance should be for Hilton Head. 
T^he license to go to Charleston to be given only by Gen. 
Gilniore. 

Edwin M. Stanton, Secretai-y of War. 



Collectors Ofb'ice, 
New York, April 1805. 

Permit the bearer to em- 
bark tin- Hilton Head, on board of the steamer Oceanus. 
(Japt. Wm. S. Young, in contlirmity with the above order 
of the Hon. Secretary of War. 

S. Draper, Collector. 

To Wm. S. Young. 

This permit to be returned at this office. 



Copy of the Receipt, duly signed and stamped, given nv the 
President OF the '"Neptune Steamship Company" to the 
Committee of Arrangements. 

"Received, New York April 8th, 1865, of S. M. Griswold, 
E. A. Studwell, and Edward Cary, Committee, Eighteen 



APPKxnix. 161 

Thousand dollars, being for passage and fare of one hundred 
and eighty persons, for a round trip from New York to 
Charleston, and other points, and thence back to New \ ork, 
to occupy nhie days, to wit: from Monday April 10th, to 
Wednesday, the 19th, not later than ten o'clock a. m. 

For every day thereafter terminating at ten o'clock a. m. 
the Committee agree to pay Twenty-five Tlundred dollars. 

$18,000. <T. S. Rowland, President. 

We hereby agree to the above stipulations in behalf of the 
said 180 persons. 

Stephen M. Grtswold. 
Edwin A. Studwell. 



Copv OF THE "Instructions to the Captain of the Oceanus," 
ISSUED BY Mr. G. S. Howland, President of the 
"Neptune vSteamship Company." 

"Neptune Steamship (company," ) 

127 Warren Street, > 

New York, April 10th, 1865. ) 

Crqiiahi Wm. S. Yoriny, of Sfecmier Oceanus : 

Dear Sir : After receiving your passengers and outfit at 
Pier 27, North River, on Monday April 10th inst., you will 
proceed to the port of Charleston. S. C, and thence to such 
other points as the committee of gentlemen authorized to act on 
behalf of your passengers may direct; provided you consider 
the ports or places designated safe for your ship to enter. 

You will exercise every precaution to avoid peril by sea, or 
fire, and every endeavor to proiiu)te the safety, comfort, and 
pleasure of your passengers. 

The trip it is contemplated, will occupy nine days, termi- 
nating on Wednesday the 19th inst., at or before 10 o'clock 
A. M. and your owners would prefer that the time be not ex- 
tended. 



H>2 



APPENDIX. 



You will, however, be subject in this respect to the wishes 
of your |)iissengers, as expressed through the committee before 
referj'ed to. 

You will re(|uest from said Committee timely uotice fbi- youi' 
de|pai1nr(' tVom place to place, and you will please keep an ac 
cui-ate doiii'iial or Log of all incidents which you may deem im- 
poi'tanl or iiit<'i'estin<j;. 

Commeudiiig yon and your company to Divine protection, 
I am, very truly, yours, 

G. S. FTowLAND. Presi(h'nt, 



APPENDIX. 163 



LIST OF PASSET^GERS. 



It was pi-oposed on hoard the " Oceaniis," that an auto- 
graphic list of the passengers should be incorporated within 
this vohniie. Subsequently, it was found that this would in- 
volve a far greater amount of troulile than was anticipated, 
and more than would be remunerative to the purchasers of 
the book. We cannot promise perfect orthographical accuracv. 
These names are given, mainly as they have been found in 
the lists already published in Brooklyn and other journals. 



"SUMTER CLUB." 



PreKident, 
EDWIN R. YALE. 



Vice Pre..n(len/.i, 
CVKUS P. SMITH. EDOAK KETCHUM 

Exenjtlve Committee, 

S M. GRISWOLD. CHARLTON T. LEWIS. 

EDWARD CARY. 



\(H 



API'KXDTX. 



Secretary, 
E. A. STT'DWELL. 

Trexmirer. 
RUFUS R. GRAVES. 

dhapluiu. 
Rev. THEO. L. CUYLER. 

Miifiical Director, 
Wj\I. B. BRADBT'RY. 



S. M. Griswold, 

Mr. and Mrs. E. A. Studwell. 

M. and Mrs. E J. Oviiigton. 

Mr. and Mrs. James Rice, 

Mr. and Mrs. Ed. P. Bray, 

J. S. Shultz, 

S. L. Husted, 

Miss E. Hnsted. 

Edward A. Low, 

Rev. A. P. Putnam, 

W. F. Gleason, 

Edward Gary, 

Mrs. D. W. Hinman, 

Miss S. A. Duryea, 

Miss Phebe B. Merritt. 

Samnol T. Keesc, 

Mr. and Mrs. D. C. Farwell, M. D. 

Hon. Alfred M. Wood and Wife. 

Mr. and Mrs. Georsre E. Brown, 

Wm. Burdon, 

Miss E. Colf.'ate, 

Norman Hul)bard. 

Miss Kate Cooley, 

" Mary Majrhee, 

" S. P. Searle. 
Mr. and Mrs. Wm. E. Caldwell, 
Mr. and Mrs. E. R. Yale, 
Mr. and Mrs J. A. Cross, 
Wm B. Husted. 
Hon. E. A. Lambert, 
G. Burcliard, 
Miss lanthe Schultz, 
Miss Kate Schultz, 
Thos. L. Thomell. 
H. A. Gouire, 
Rev. J. Leavitt. D. D.. 



Ed. M. Townsend. 

W. Duval. 

Henrv Seymour. 

Steplu-n S. Hoe. 

Ricliard M. Hoe. Jr.. 

A. C. Kellogg. 

A. W. Kellogg, 

Wm. Arnold, 

Wm. Barton, 

Rev. H. M. Gallaher. 

Curtis Noble, 

Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Shetbar. 

James A. Snydani. 

W. P. Vaughn. 

David Maydole, 

Mr. and Mrs. R. H. McDonald, 

Mrs. Weeks, 

Geo. C. Robinson. 

Samuel Crowell, 

Wm. E. Hudson. Jr. 

Mr. and Mrs. C. L. IMerriam. 

Rev. J. J. Chadwic-k. 

E. T. H. Gibson, Jr. 

Mrs. C. C. Dike. 

Rev. Mr. and Mrs. O. B. Frothingham. 

H C. Reeve, 

R. F. Goldsmith. 

John Lowe. Jr. 

J. F. Hughes, 

John Ward. Jr. 

R. B. Denny, 

Thos. L. Smith. 

Jas. T. Atkinson. 

John D. Cocks, 

Wm. H. Parsons, 

J. E. Parsons, 



APPENDIX. 



165 



Chas. Taylor, 

T. Dwight Martin. 

H. S. Guernsey, 

II. A. Dike and Niece. 

Hon. C. P. Smith, 

Miss Ellen L. Smith, 

Mr. and Mrs. L. P. Starr, 

Mr. and Mrs. D. II. Conklini;-. 

Master Eddie Conkling, 

J. A. Perry, 

W. A. Perry. 

— Colgate, 

Mrs. Holmes, 

Mrs. Geo. W. Bergen, 

Mrs. Geo. H. Roberts, 

Mr. and Mrs. A. V. Dike, 

Rev. J. C. French, 

D. S. Arnold, 

Master Arnold, 

Mr. and Mrs. Jacob B. Murray. 

Mr. and Mrs. A. McCollum. 

Mrs. Thos. W. Coughlan. 

Thos. H. Maghee, 

Mr. and Mrs. Ruins R. Graves, 

Mr. and Mrs. Roswell S. Benedict, 

L. B. Squiers, 

Henry C. Bowen, 

Miss Mary L. Bowen, 

Miss Grace A. Bowen, 

Fred. Ives, 

Samuel Stevens, 

Mr. and Mrs. B. H. Smith. 

Mrs. Edward E. Bowen, 

Miss Eliza Cary. 

Mrs. Eames, 

Mrs. Col. Simpkins, 

Rev. Thto. L. Cuyler. 

P. H. Richardson, 

Chas. H. Marshall, Jr. 

Mr. and Mrs. C. T. Lewis, 

John W. Minturn, 

Rev. A. P. Graves, 

Miss Harrison, 

Mr. and Mrs. P. A. Dailey. 

L. II. Biglow, 

F. H. Biglow, 

W. M. Aikman, 

L. P. Hawes, 

Edward Ball, 

Chai'les B. Loomis, 

H. H. Crarv. 



j Mr. and Mrs. A. K. Larrabee. 
' Samuel B. Duryea, 

D. R. James, 
Dr. Allen and Daughter. 
Amos Clark, Jr., 
Rev. J. L. Corning, 
Jas. H. Prothingham, 
Fred. K. Whitmore, 
John J. Cocks, 
Aaron M. Powell, 
John Stanton, 
Wm. H. Lewis, 
Orington Lunt, 
P. Van Iderstine, Jr.. 
W. J. Magie, 
Rich'd Howe, 
Oliver K. Lapham, 
M. P. Lynde, 
A. F. Bigelow. 
H. H. White, 
Wm. Menzies Adams, 
Jas. Flynn, 
W. A. Spicer, 
Mr. and Mrs. Isaac C. Noe, 

E. Lewis, 
W. E. James, 
Oliver Hoyt, 
J. L. Leonard, 
D. A. Smith, 

D. C. Morehead, M. D.. 
Wm. W. Dedrick, 

E. P. Whittemore, 
Aaron Vail, 
E. E. Hoftman, M. D.. 
Hon. George Hall, 
Miss Emma Hall, 
Mrs. Hannah P. Voorhies, 
Geo. McClure, 
Thos. C. Bacon, 
J. Corlies White, 
Wm. B. Bradbury, 
Col. Chas. Howard, 
Elias Longley, 
Hon. Edgar Ketchum, 
Prof. Storrs, 
Prof. Gallaudet, 
R. P. Corey, 
George C. Hall, 
Dixon G. Hughes, 
Geo. W. Sherley, 
Fred'k Wetmore, 

11 



166 APPENDIX. 



Report of thk Case of Mr. Swift, tfie Wotnuei) Engi- 
neer. — Operation upon the Foot, by 1). (t. Far- 
well, M. D., OF Brooklyn. 

■■ On W('(lnosday morniiiir, tiie 12th inst., ut alxnit o.oO a. m., 
Ml'. Swift of Staten Island, who was emph)ye<l as Assistant 
Engineer <;»n l)oard the " Oceanus," met with a serious accident 
from the machinery of the engine — requiring the amputation of 
his foot. Having provided myself witli no instruments for sucli 
an emei'gency, for the excursion, the patient was made as com- 
fortable as possible, until our arrival in Charleston. 

At 8 o'clock Friday moi'ning. I procured the assistance of Dr. 
H. O. Marcy, Surgeon of the o5th U. S. Colored Regiment, who 
kindly offered the use of his instruments for the occasion. The 
operation of removing the metatarsal bones from tlip tarsal, 
known as Iley's operation, was deemed the most |)i-()|)cr one, 
having in view tlie necessity of saving as much of the tool as was 
safe. (Complete Anaesthesia by chloform was produced, w hen the 
extent of the lasceration of the muscles was ascertained to lie 
more than was at fii'st supposed. 

We made a curved incision from the outer portion of the foot, 
behind the cuboid tarsal towards the phalanges, — thence to the 
internal cuneiform tarsal, on the dorsal surfiice, dissecting ii|) tiw 
flap so as to admit of the disartlcuhition of the first mi'tatarsai at 
its base, from the cuneiform bone, and in turn, the second, third, 
fourth and fifth metatarsi, from the middle and external ciineit'orm, 
and the cuboid bones of the tarsus. The knife was then di-awn 
downward and outward, making a corresponding flap of the 
plantar portion of the integument. 

The arteries being properly secui'cd, (I may here say that a re. 
markably small amount of blood was lost from the time <if the 
accident, and during the whole operation,) and the flaps approxi- 
mated, a removal of the head of the cuneiform bone was found 
necessary, to admit of the union of the flaps. 



APPENDIX. IfiT 

Sufficient time having been allowed, before closing the wound, 
to carefully examine the security of the blood-vessels, the sutures 
and straps were applied, and the stump dressed with cold ap- 
plications. Twenty minutes was the time occupied in the opera- 
tion. Anaesthesia soon passing, left the patient in as quiet a con- 
dition as could be expected. I ordered a hammock arranged for 
him, and he returned with the " Oceanus," on the 19th inst. 

During the trip, cold water dressings were frequently applied, 
and the patient is doing well. 

Respectfully yours. 

D. G. Farwell. 

This misfoi'tune of the Engineer, was aggravated by the fact 
that, just before leaving New York, upon this trip, he had ex- 
pended nearly all his earnings, in securing exemption from the 
draft. 

The prompt liberality of the passengers, in raising for him a 
purse of |i535, has already been noticed. 



Copy of Letter, presenting to the Long Island Historical 
Society, and the New York Historical Society each, a 
640 LB. shot, secured in Charleston. 

Brooklyn, May 22d, 1865. 

To the Long Island Historical Society : 

(jrENTLEMEN : At a meeting of the passengers on board the 
steamer Oceanus, chartered by S. M. Griswold, E. A. Studwell 
and Edward Gary, Esqs., for the purpose of visiting Charleston, 
and being present at the Hag-raising on Fort Sumter, held on the 
14th of April, 1865, the undersigned were appointed a committee 
to obtain some memorial of the war, to be deposited with the 
Long Island Historical Society, and the New York Historical 
Society. 



168 APPENDIX. 

Tliro'ugh tilt' courtesy of General Hatch, coniniaiiding at 
Charleston, and the kindly services of Lieut. John P. L. Weiden- 
saul and Lieut. (Jollins, the committee were enabled tooV)tain two 
<)40 pound shots, designed for the Blakely guns (of English manu- 
tacture) and which were captui-ed from the rebels on the evacua- 
tion of Charleston. 

In behalf of the "Sumter (jlub," an organization composed of 
the passengers of the Oceanus on the occasion referred to, one of 
these shots is presented to your Society as a memento of "Eng- 
lish ntnitrality." 

Signed, 

A. M. Wood, 
Edward A. Lambekt, 
Cyrus P. Smith, 

Committee. 
• -♦■ 

Relics. 

Simply to name all the relies which were obtained at Charles- 
ton by our company, in their antiquarian researches, would require 
a volume. 

A few only of the most important and interesting can be 
mentioned. 

Mr. Edwin A. Studwell secured the following : 

A pass written and signed by James Monroe, while Minister 
Plenipotentiary at the Court of Great Britain, to Thomas Pinck- 
ney, Jr., of South Carolina. As this is a paper of much interest, 
we transcribe it. 

" I, James Monroe, Minister Plenipotentiary of the United 
States of America at the Court of Great Britain — 

"Desire all whom it may concern, to permit Thomas Pinckney, 
a citizen of the United States of America, to pass without gi\ing 
or suftering any molestation or hindrance to be given to him ; but, 
on the contrary, aflbrdiug him all requisite assistance and pro- 



APPENDIX. 169 

tection, as I would do in similar circumstances to all those who 
might be recommended to me — 

" The said Thomas Pinckney is twenty-two years of age, five 
feet seven inches in height, has grey eyes, dark hair, fair com- 
plexion. 

" [n testimony whereof, I have delivered to him this Passport, 
dated in London, this 5th day of October, 1803 — 

James Monkoe." seal 

This document has a seal of red wax, as large as a fifty cent 
"shinplaster." 

Mr. Studwell also found, 

A Treasury paper signed by Alexander Hamilton, while Secre- 
tary of the United States Treasury, 1791. 

A letter from Lord Fairfax to John Baylis in 1753. 
A letter from John Bowden, 1779. 
Power of Attorney from Thomas Gadsden. 
Power of Attorney from Frederick H. Rutledge. 
United States Bank Stock, of ancient date. 

Di'. J. xVUen brought "home as trophies, fragments of the im- 
mense Blakely gun, upon the Battery, exploded by the rebels. 

Also portions of shell and shot, exhumed from the ruins of 
Fort Sumter. 

Also, books of ancient date ti'om the rubbish of Charleston 
libraries. The title of one is, "The PhUosoi)hy of Kidnapping," 
and contains many passages of curious interest, as a commentary 
upon the humanity of the "Slave business." 

Mr. Edward Ball has on exhibition a number of relics which 
he secui-ed by much industry — The band from the breech of the 
Blakely gun — Pair of epaulettes worn by a rebel ofiicer — Frag- 
ments ffom St. Michael's Church — Pieces of shell — Solid shot — 
and papers of interest. 



170 AFFENDIX. 

Mr. Frothingham, of this city, found two or three remarkable 
letters, written just before the outbreak of the Rebellion, and 
giving an inside view of the feeling of leading Secessionists. 

One gentleman, secured a pair of manacles, which had been in 
in use in one of the slave-])ei!s. 

Another picked up a paper, whose date was lost, purporting to 
be a copy of enactments passed to regulate the treatment of 
slaves — providing a fine of £740, for the wilful murder of a slave 
— £350 for the unintentional murder of a slave, in the oi-dinary 
processes of whipping — £70 i'lne.for /jxtfliKf out the ei/e, vuttimj 
(iff the ears, pudiuff out the toiKjue^ and otherwise inaiui'uui <i s/are. 

Fragments of the Submarine Telegraphic Cable, laid between 
Fort Sumter and Charleston, and the surrounding forts, were 
l)roiight away, as additional indications of'' English Neutrality." 

Confederate '•Blue-backs," the worthless currency of the South- 
ern States, were bought by the bushel at a merely nominal price, 
and are now to be seen in any curiosity-shop window, as speci- 
mens of very poor engraving, and of an intinitely poorer and now 
defunct institution. 



A MEMENTO OF THE OCEANUS TRIP. 

To the Editor of The Union : 

Among the many pleasant incidents which occurred during the 
trip of the passengers of the steamer '• Oceanus." to Charleston, 
at the time of the restoration of the Hag on Fort Sumler, was the 
following, which, if you deem of sufficient interest to present to 
your readers, you will please insert in "The Union :" 

Mrs. B., who was making observations in her own peculiar 
way, having strayed a little from the party accompanying her, 
was accosted by a black woman, with a hen under one arm and a 
basket of eggs under the other, saying, " Missus I want to give 
the Northern ladies something, but I have nothing but this hen 
and these eggs ; will you please take them f The kindness of 



APPENDIX. 171 

heai't shown by tliis poor woman, was too much for the sym- 
pathetic MMtiire of Mrs. B. ; but what to do with the hen and its 
products, so far fi'om home, was a (juestioM not easily settled. A 
(•oMii)i'omise was soon agi'eed to; the eggs were taken, and the hen 
h'ft. A •' souvenir" was put in the woman's hand, and she de- 
|»arted in much delight. She soon returned, howevei', with more 
eggs, which were received by another Mrs. B.. and a '• deposit" 
made, as above, in the hands of the woman. 

In discussing the question on the homeward passage, what 
should be done with the eggs, (jur friend Mr. W. E. C. — who is 
ever on the alert " to do good as he has opportunity" — proposed 
to the ladies, to take the eggs up to his country seat, and put 
them under the care of the most motherly hen in his large flock. 
This ai-rangement was carried out, and a lettei' just received from 
my friend C, gives the result: 

Armenia, N. Y., .lune 10, 18(55. 

Dear Sir : — I am happy to inform you that tlie Charleston hen 
has done her duty, as well as could be expected under the 
circumstances. 

The eggs were evidently the product of secession times, and 
stoutly resisted all Northern influences. 

But the mother-hen determined, " a la Gen. Grant," to set it 
out on this nest " if it took all summer." A great destruction of 
capital has been the result, but "victory at last" has rewarded her 
efforts, and she is now followed by a train of foui- i/ipeds, one 
black, one white, and two octoroons. 

[ have neglected to tell you that the mother-hen is black, and 
struts with pompous pride above her white and octoroon subjects. 

They will be chei-ished and nourished with care, and if they 
escape all the ills incident to chicken childhood, they shall be 
piesent at the inauguration of the Sumter Sociable next winter. 

Mrs. 0. and myself unite in much regard to Mrs. B. and your- 
self. 

Respectfully yours. 

W. E. C. 



172 AHl'ENinX. 

"mdoxu at fast!!" 

IIow appropriate that this popular, truthful and spirited glee, 
should conclude these pages! Victory — houoi- — peace — glory — 
at last ! 

Mr. Bradbury has very kindly furnished us the stereotyped 
plate of the song, as it was daily sung by all the passengers 
during the memorable trip of the " Oceanus." 



VICTORY AT LAST. 



SONG AND CHORUS. 



Words hf/ Mk». M. a. Kiddek. 



Munic hy Wm. B. Bradbury. 




-F=^P^-=^^=^^ 



« ^-.-0-^—»- 



^m 



U Introduction, mm. i 



U^-^- 



J For many years we've waited 
( And now that day approaches. 



^ -#.*-# '-' -' ~^» - 0- ^0-» 1- L, 0, 0-0 

-0-.-0-0- -#■ •€>■ -0- 



lU 



/— v.i»~TI«^^ ^— » 1 — 1 — I — 1 — 1 f T-m m w — m- 



hail the day of peace, When our land sliould be united. And war and strife should cease ; | 
drums are beating fast. And all tlu' boys are coming home. There's victory at last. j 

i_gj^ — '^ ^^ 9 l--^-r-Nr S 1 r-iB*^ — 7"^--^ rr 



iiUe^ 



^.„ „-. — > — A-A — ^-^ — *- — J-J- 



* -^"i 






H=i=:l^« 



-• - 



FULL CHORUS. 

L i—l --0 — 0---0—0 1 '- •- 

-#. • • Vi/ 

There's vie - to - ry at last, boy.s, vie -to- ry at last! O'er 

SNNSS I ■»- ' -0- -0- ' ■•- -0- \ 

« u — 0-'--0'^-0-^-0^ -0 — *— -1— r — r:"t — |-— * fr"" 



'^^3^ 






'0-0 
lanil and sc^a Our flas: is free; We'll nail it to the mast ; Yes, vve'l 



nail it to the mast, boys. Nail it to the mabt ; For there's 



"V" ^"^ ^ ^ 




J^3zSz2i=izJz-zU=3J=^E5=:z!!— J=T:zfci=^=ff 

#-:-#—* * ^ — ' — ' —\-0—.—0 — g— •- — I — -^ — ^ — 1-|- 

:ic - to - ry, vie - to - ry, vie - to - ry at last! 

■I— 4— -I— rr\ m . m ■•— #•■•- 

»--•-» — # r^— r — I 1 • rr 






3. The heroes who have gained it, 

And lived to see that day, 
We will meet with flying banners 

And honors on the way ; 
And all their sad privations 

Shall to the winds be cast, 
For all the boys are coming home — 

There's victory at last. — Chorus. 

;j. happy wives and children, 

Light np your hearts and homes. 
For see, with martial music 

" The conquering hero comes," 
With flags and streamers flying, 

While drums are beating fast ; 
For all the boys are coming home — 

There's victory at last. — Chorus. 

From the " Golden Censeii,'' h;/ perininnioii.. 

riling 10 Act iif Conirresa, in the year 1865, l>v Wm. B. Brupeury, in the 
llnitcrl Sinles IV.rlhi- Dislrict of N»w Jersey. 



O 



KRRATA. 

Owing to the haste with which this book was crowded through 
the priiitiiig-offiee — though afterwards amioyingly delayed by the 
engraver and binder — the Committee are compelled to note the 
following Errata : 

Introductory Note, 12tli liue, for "effects," read "affects." 

Page 23, for " impassable," read " impassible." 

Page 25, 8th line, for " lovely," read " level." 

Page 2(i, 7th line from l)ot torn, for "surrounded," read "surmounted." 

Page 20, (>tli line, for " propellor," read " propeller." 

Page 'M, last liu(^ for " treselated," read " tesselated." 

Page of), middle line, for "traits," read "boasts." 

Page ;)9, 7tli line, for "disgraceful," read "ungraceful." 

Page 52, 4th line, for " fold," read " field." 

Page r)2, lOtli line, for " waived," read " waved." 

Page 52, 12th line, for " ecxtatic," read "ecstatic." 

Page 52, 5th line from bottom, for " weltering," read '■ swelling." 

Page 91, IDth linc^ for "lightning," read "tightening." 

Page 95, 4th line, for "gentlemen," n^ad "gentleman." 

Page 122, 12tli line, for "jassmine," read "jasmin." 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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